The Jewish Leadership Blog: The Anti-American Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah Axis

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

*Venezuela’s geostrategic location in Latin America has been used by Iran and its main proxy, Hezbollah, to undermine the strategic posture of “The Great American Satan” in the U.S. backyard. The Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah axis has created a mutually beneficial anti-American network of intelligence, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, training, weapons, supplies, and know-how, transforming Venezuela into a central hub for transnational organized crime and international terrorism. Since 1979, however, the State Department has maintained its diplomatic option with the Ayatollahs of Iran, which has strengthened the Ayatollahs’ anti-American capabilities and threatened the survival of any pro-American Arab regime.

*According to the Atlantic Council: “The dual-use nature of Iran’s collaboration with Venezuela’s Maduro regime, layered with the illicit financial connections of its enablers, and Hezbollah’s established criminal-terror network in Venezuela, creates a national security concern of the first order for the United States. It is multifaceted and requires a robust response.”

*According to Joseph M. Humire, co-author of Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America: “For more than a decade, Iran has been supplying Venezuela with modern weapons, including long-range drones, smart bombs, cruise missiles, rockets, and of course, combat boats. These weapons systems are not intended to be used in conventional military ways, but instead for asymmetric amphibious attacks, such as the tactics used by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels off the coast of Yemen and in the Red Sea… Iran is taking this modus operandi across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, targeting the United States with the escalating conflict between Venezuela and Guyana (over a territorial dispute, offshore oil, and commercial shipping routes) as a catalyst… Iran, Russia, and China have already conducted half a dozen joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean since 2018 and are seeking to bring these exercises to the Atlantic. Venezuela can provide them with the pretext to do so.”

*Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has terminated cooperation with
Venezuela’s intelligence service, which is aiding the despotic and corrupt Maduro regime, while using Venezuela’s geostrategic location as a base to plan terror operations on the soil of “The Great American Satan” and undermine the US’s strategic position in its own hemisphere. FBI Director Chris Wray even alleges that Iranian-backed Islamic terrorists have set up sleeper cells in the US, plotting assassinations of former and current US officials.

*According to a July 16, 2024 CNN report, the U.S. Intelligence and other counterterrorism agencies have detected a significant increase in Iran’s attempts to assassinate former President Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former national security advisers John Bolton and Robert O’Brien.

*The Atlantic Council document states: “(Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah,) has helped turn Venezuela into a hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime, international terrorism…, narcoterrorism involving the (Marxist-Leninist) Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), drug cartels in Mexico, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Syria…. Hezbollah is responsible for (training the Al Qaeda terrorists who bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania with car bombs in 1998), carrying out terrorist attacks in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Argentina, Panama, the United Kingdom, and Bulgaria…. The Iranian-Hezbollah terror network is also suspected of shooting down Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 in Panama, killing all twenty-one passengers on board….

“The Hezbollah terrorist network operates in the Paraguay-Brazil-Argentina triangle… Of the more than 2,000 individuals and entities worldwide designated by the U.S. government as foreign drug lords, nearly 200 are tied to Hezbollah and its growing involvement in large-scale money laundering and multi-ton cocaine shipments… In October 2018, the Justice Department named Hezbollah one of the top five transnational criminal organizations… Hezbollah is on a par with the drug cartels in organized crime and terror…”

“In Venezuela, the logistical air bridge between Caracas, Damascus and Tehran has proven profitable for Hezbollah and Iran…”

*In June 2022, Iran and Venezuela signed a 20-year cooperation agreement in the fields of oil, petrochemicals, refinery repairs, defense, agriculture, tourism, culture, and the export of technical and engineering services…. In 2023, they concluded 19 cooperation agreements in the fields of industry, mining, agriculture, energy, science and technology.

*Asia Times reports that “Iran’s interest in Venezuela (has to do with the latter’s) uranium reserves, a crucial element for its nuclear program. This interest is not limited to Venezuela. Bolivia and Peru are also important for their strategic resources, underscoring the geopolitical importance of these countries to Tehran.”

*According to Azerbaijan-based Caspian News: “Iran has been expanding military cooperation with Venezuela in recent years. Since 2012, the Iranian-designed Mohajer-2 drone has been produced in Venezuela as the Arpia drone with Iranian support…. The total volume of oil trade between Iran and Venezuela has reached nearly $4 billion, and Iran aims to increase the trade volume to $10 billion and further to $20 billion…. Iran and Venezuela have been strengthening ties for years, including by working together to evade US sanctions on both countries….

*Regardless of the above facts, the State Department continues to maintain its diplomatic option with the Iranian ayatollahs, assuming that such a policy – ​​lavished with hundreds of billions of dollars – would persuade the ayatollahs to accept peaceful coexistence with their Sunni Arab neighbors, negotiate in good faith, and abandon a 1,400-year-old fanatical ideology. The State Department maintains that the Iranian ayatollahs are partners in negotiations, despite the ayatollahs’ global rogue status and anti-American track record, underscoring that they should be a target for regime change.