I've been trying to connect to a remote mysql server..

I have made sure skip-networking is commented out in the my.cnf

I have the iptables rule set correctly (I copy and pasted a rule that
the webhost is/was using for mysql dumps).
--------------------------------------------
-A newconnection -s x.x.x.x -p tcp -m tcp --dport 3306 -j ACCEPT
--------------------------------------------

It is being called like so:
--------------------------------------------
/usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql
--pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-locking --port=3306
--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
--------------------------------------------

Here is the output when trying  to connect remotely using telnet from
3 different allowed locations(local shell, remote shell and another
remote shell):
--------------------------------------------
[webdev at local ~]$ telnet www.remote.com 3306
Trying xx.xx.xx.xx...
Connected to www.remote.com (xx.xx.xx.xx).
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.
--------------------------------------------

Here is the output when trying  to connect locally using telnet (this
is assuming I've setup a user with the proper permissions):
--------------------------------------------
remote:~# telnet 127.0.0.1 3306
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
7
4.0.24_Debian-10sarge2ÉYYcAY}*UOi,Connection closed by foreign host.
--------------------------------------------

Here is the output of netstat after trying to connect remotely using PHP:
--------------------------------------------
remote:~# netstat -an | grep 3306
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:3306            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN
tcp        0      0 local_ip:3306     remote_ip:13238      TIME_WAIT
--------------------------------------------

Here is the error on the PHP side I will get:
--------------------------------------------
Lost connection to MySQL server during query
--------------------------------------------

I also granted permissions like so:
--------------------------------------------
grant SELECT, DELETE, UPDATE on remote.* to 'remote'@'vpn.local.com'
identified by 'password'
--------------------------------------------

Here is the contents of /etc/mysql/my.cnf minus the comments:
--------------------------------------------
[client]
port        = 3306
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

[mysqld_safe]
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
nice        = -5

[mysqld]
user        = mysql
pid-file    = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
port        = 3306
basedir     = /usr
datadir     = /var/lib/mysql
tmpdir      = /tmp
language    = /usr/share/mysql/english
skip-external-locking
key_buffer      = 16M
max_allowed_packet  = 16M
thread_stack        = 128K
query_cache_limit   = 1048576
query_cache_size        = 26214400
query_cache_type        = 1
skip-innodb

[mysqldump]
quick
quote-names
max_allowed_packet  = 16M

[mysql]

[isamchk]
key_buffer      = 16M
--------------------------------------------

I've scoured the web.. and I'm at a loss.  I'm not a network guru but
this seems like it is more difficult then it needs to be...

The server does have a heartbeat channel setup using HA Linux but I
don't know if that would affect this at all.

Clayton