Iranian Ayatollahs Challenge US in Mexico

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

The U.S. State Department’s determination to suspend and ease economic sanctions against Iranian ayatollahs has added some $175 billion to the ayatollahs’ national income since February 2021. This additional income has bolstered the ayatollahs’ anti-American global terrorism and drug trafficking, while the U.S. persists in its feeble responses to the frequent attacks on U.S. installations in the Persian Gulf, Syria, and Jordan by the ayatollahs and their vassals in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. These ayatollahs’ villainy has undermined the security of the main trade route (the Red Sea) between Europe and the Far East, while causing a severe economic setback for pro-American Egypt and threatening the survival of all pro-American Arab regimes.

At the same time:

*Mexico’s increasing alliance with anti-American, pro-Iranian Latin American governments – such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil and Chile – is evidence of the erosion of America’s strategic position in its own hemisphere, as are the dramatic inroads that Iran’s ayatollahs – in coordination with their Hezbollah proxy – have made into the soft underbelly of “The Great American Satan.”

*Mexico has followed in the footsteps of the Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil triangle and has become an arena for Iranian and Hezbollah drug trafficking and terrorist financing money laundering. For example, the Iranian ayatollahs and Hezbollah have trained Mexican drug cartels in car bomb and improvised explosive devices, and supplied them with equipment for building underground tunnels, as well as unmanned predator aircraft.

*Collaboration with Mexican drug cartels has provided the Iranian ayatollahs and Hezbollah with a powerful platform to seriously undermine the security of the American homeland, while simultaneously creating a large number of dormant terror cells within the US.

*The deep involvement of the ayatollahs and Hezbollah in terrorism and drug trafficking in Latin America began in the early 1980s, shortly after they overthrew the Shah of Iran with the ardent support of the US State Department.

*The penetration of the Ayatollahs and Hezbollah into Mexico and the US is enhanced by their strong presence in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. This is the capital of the Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil tripoint and the global epicenter of drug terrorism in general and cocaine trafficking in particular.

*According to testimony by Nathan Sales, a former U.S. counterterrorism coordinator, on October 25, 2023, before the House Homeland Security Committee: “The United States and Israel have common enemies. For the Islamic Republic, Israel may be the Little Satan, but America is the Big Satan, and the Iranian terror proxies who want to slaughter Israelis also want to slaughter Americans…. The Islamic Republic clearly bears responsibility for the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023….

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is the worst state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and countless terrorist proxies, the regime has murdered countless innocent civilians, mercilessly taken hostages, and spilled blood on an industrial scale. The threat it poses is not limited to the Middle East, but extends throughout the world, including the United States….

“The Islamic Republic is actively plotting the assassination of a number of former senior U.S. officials here on U.S. soil. Last year, the Justice Department announced charges against an IRGC member believed to be the leader of a plot to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton. The would-be assassin is also believed to have targeted former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. These former officials and others like them now live under constant, round-the-clock government protection due to the Iranian threat to their lives….

“Tehran planned to use a Mexican national with ties to drug cartels in the attempted assassination of John Bolton. It also attempted to use a Mexican drug cartel in the 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. There is a significant risk that Iranian-backed terrorists will again exploit these vulnerabilities in the future. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in San Diego recently warned that (Iranian-sponsored) Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorists ‘may attempt to travel across the southwest border to or from enemy territory in the Middle East by means of a detour…’

“The Iranian regime targets Americans abroad as well as Americans at home. The IRGC was responsible for the deaths of 603 American soldiers in Iraq… That’s one-sixth of all American deaths during the Iraq war. In Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic reportedly paid Taliban fighters a $1,000 bounty for every American soldier they killed…

“Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group, was responsible for the 1983 attacks on the U.S. Embassy and the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 63 and 305 people, respectively. Today, Hezbollah is the Islamic Republic’s favorite proxy for terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews around the world…. In recent years, the group has been caught planning attacks or stockpiling explosives in Western Europe, Latin America, the Gulf, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere…. Between 1997 and 2020, 128 suspected Hezbollah members were arrested in the United States. In recent years, the FBI has arrested three suspected Hezbollah operatives who were monitoring the Panama Canal and surveying potential targets in New York City, including the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center.…

“The US should resume harsh sanctions to deny Iran the means to fund terrorism around the world. The Iranian regime is richer today than it has been in years… The bigger problem, in my view, is the fact that the regime has been able to dramatically increase its energy exports and thereby dramatically improve its economic strength. As a result of crippling sanctions, Iran’s economy was crippled at the end of the previous administration, its coffers were drained, and its ability to project power abroad was diminished. Tehran is in a significantly stronger position today. In 2021, the regime’s accessible foreign exchange reserves had fallen to $4-6 billion, about the same as Haiti… Energy analysts estimate that Iran’s oil exports have increased four- or fivefold since 2020 (from 500,000 barrels per day to 2-3 million barrels), with the lion’s share of sales going to China…

“Sanctions deny terrorists the money they need to plan and carry out attacks. For years, Hezbollah could count on its patrons in Tehran who gave it more than $700 million a year, and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists received $100 million a year…”