Iran’s Ayatollahs and Hezbollah assault on the US homeland Yoram Ettinger
*The Washington DC-based Wilson Center think tank contends that “the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas against Israel, which killed 1,200 people [equal to 41,000 Americans], including 32 U.S. citizens, …could inspire [Islamic] terrorist attacks in the United States and other regions, including Latin America….
*Iran’s Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani stated that “Latin American countries are of special significance in Iran’s foreign and defense policy, based on the importance of the very sensitive South American region.”
*According to Arturo McFields, a Nicaragua diplomat in-exile (The Hill, May 2, 2024), the Ayatollahs’ threat to the US homeland cannot be underestimated. In fact, Iran has redoubled its political, technological and military alliance with Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
*A University of Texas at El Paso study concludes that “[the Hezbollah-Mexican drug cartels nexus] is a time bomb waiting to explode in our homeland…. The threat of an attack by Hezbollah against the US has always been present. It has become much more realistic due to the Hezbollah spread of activity and influence in Latin America [including underground tunnel construction along the US-Mexico border]…. Hezbollah has many pieces in place to conduct an act of terror on U.S. interests…. Venezuela and Chile are hosting Hezbollah, and several more Latin American countries have also been supportive. The proximity of Mexico makes it more deadly. [The Hezbollah-Mexican drug cartels collaboration includes training in the areas of car-bombs, suicide bombing and Improvised Explosive Devices]….”
*Iran’s Ayatollahs and their Hezbollah proxy have considered Latin America as the soft underbelly of “The Great American Satan.” They have established themselves in Latin America since the early 1980s, as a stepping stone toward the US mainland, leveraging large and financially successful Shiite Lebanese migrant communities. They have set up rogue initiatives – especially in the lawless tri border areas of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and Chile-Peru-Bolivia – to bankroll global terrorism, money laundering (powered by Crypto Currency), counterfeiting, weapon proliferation/trafficking, drug and human trafficking.
*The State Department has adhered to its diplomatic option toward the Ayatollahs, notwithstanding the Ayatollahs’ attempts – as testified by FBI Director, Chris Wray – to replicate the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorism on US soil. Furthermore, the diplomatic option toward the Ayatollahs’ regime is still in effect, irrespective of the Ayatollahs’ 45-year-old track record as a leading epicenter of global anti US initiatives; despite the Ayatollahs’ anti-US constitution, school curriculum and mosque incitement, which aim to bring the “oppressive US” to submission. This is, also, regardless of the Ayatollahs’ oppression of women and all religious and ethnic minorities; and in spite of the Ayatollahs’ expanded collaboration with the drug cartels of Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, and all anti-US governments, especially Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba.
*The State Department’s latest annual report on global terrorism indicates that “Iran continued to be the leading state sponsor of terrorism, facilitating a wide range of terrorist and other illicit activities around the world.”
*The Hill (ibid.) adds that in July 2023, Bolivia – the third largest producer of cocaine in the world, in addition to its lithium reserves, which are critical to nuclear fission and fusion technologies – signed a military cooperation accord with Iran. Bolivia has also requested drones from Iran. Argentina’s security minister, Patricia Bullrich, disclosed that more than 700 members of Iran’s Quds Force are stationed in Bolivia. Iran’s Quds Force is a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, specializing in external unconventional warfare and military intelligence.
*Moreover, in 2023, Venezuela and Iran announced a larger cooperation accord (mostly petrochemicals), increasing trade from $3 billion annually to $20 billion per year in the coming years. Iran supplied Venezuela fast attack boats and anti-ship missiles. Cuba and Iran signed six cooperation agreements, including $200-$500 million annual Iranian aid. Also, Brazil maintains robust commercial ties with Iran, which has a strong presence in the Caribbean, South and Central America. This poses a clear and present danger to the US national and homeland security.
*The intensifying Ayatollahs threat to all US’ Arab allies is gleaned through a recent report by Homeland Security Today, which underscores the intense subversive and terroristic offensive by Iran and its Syrian and Iraqi proxies on Jordan’s pro-US Hashemite regime. The Virginia-based media outlet reports that Jordan has launched a military offensive against Iran-supported terrorists and drug traffickers across its border with Syria.
According to HST, Iran’s illicit (drug production and trafficking) economy is estimated to be 35%-44% of GDP with a value of $160BN-$200BN. “Iranian opiates and methamphetamines have been seized as far away as the United States, Australia and South America, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force central to Iran’s global trafficking network.”
*The State Department assumes that “money talks,” and therefore, the hundreds of billions of dollars, which have been showered upon the Ayatollahs since their rise to power in February 1979 were supposed to induce the Ayatollahs to adopt peaceful-coexistence with their Sunni Arab neighbors, become good-faith negotiators and to abandon their fanatic, religious ideology. However, since the Ayatollahs’ rise to power – which was assisted by the US State Department – the Ayatollahs have demonstrated that their commitment to their ideology, which stipulates bringing “The Great American Satan” to submission, transcends financial and diplomatic considerations, and eclipses their determination to bring down the “infidel” Jewish State and the pro-US “apostate” Sunni Arab regimes.
*The dramatic transformation of Iran’s Ayatollahs into a clear and present danger to the US homeland security has been largely a derivative of the State Department’s policy toward Iran – top heavy on carrots but very low on sticks, yielding a tailwind to rogue regimes, posing a potential death sentence to all pro-US oil-producing Arab regimes, a dramatic setback to the US and other Western democracies and a bonanza to China, Russia, Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Moslem Brotherhood.
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