RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The presence of Iran in Latin America is no longer a threat, it is a reality. This year the alliance between the Teheran regime and the Nicolas Maduro government in Venezuela grew considerably, particularly with the shipment of Iranian fuel to the Caribbean country, which is experiencing a severe energy crisis. Another key player in Venezuela’s alleged narco-terrorist structure is Hezbollah, the Lebanese extremist group sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On Wednesday, the Atlantic Council, a non-partisan think tank located in Washington, D.C. published a report entitled “The Maduro-Hezbollah Nexus: How Iranian-backed networks underpin the Venezuelan regime”. Based on this report, the Council held a virtual conference, in which Infobae news site was involved. The speakers were Republican Michael Waltz (Member of the US House of Representatives for Florida); Democrat Deborah Wasserman Schultz (Member of the House of Representatives, also for Florida); Kirsten Fontenrose (Director of Regional Security of the Middle East Division of the Atlantic Council); and Joseph Humire (Executive Director of the Center for a Free and Safe Society, and author of the report). Jason Marczak and Diego Area, director and associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin American Center, respectively, were the moderators.
When analyzing the presence of Hezbollah in the region, and in particular in Venezuela, Humire considered that “the main issue is to understand how the terrorist group operates”: “Hezbollah has a multifaceted and multidimensional model. They have legitimate activities such as a political party and media, which are combined with illegal activities, including drug trafficking and money laundering.”
On the other hand, Fontenrose stated that the Iranian regime “is using the same model in Venezuela as it did in Syria”: “To support a corrupt regime in search of a set of strategic, operational and tactical interests”. “Iran and the Maduro regime are criminalized states: they use terrorism and transnational crime as an extension of their foreign policy,” Humire completed.
The Atlantic Council report argues that Hezbollah “has helped turn Venezuela into a hub of transnational organized crime and international terrorism.” This, in turn, “has helped foster Iran’s cooperation with the Maduro regime.”
“Venezuela’s strategic location in South America and at the intersection with the Caribbean provides Iran and the Hezbollah with the ability to mitigate their geographic disadvantage with respect to the United States. To conceal this relationship, Chavez, and later the Maduro regime, provided dual identities to some Middle Eastern nationals, building a clandestine network that provides intelligence, training, funds, weapons, supplies and expertise to both Maduro and Assad regimes,” he adds.
For his part, Humire warned that the Lebanese terrorist group “can move faster through regions than governments because it uses tactics borrowed from unconventional warfare.” “They are non-state networks that do not respect borders and do not respect boundaries.”
Fontenrose explained that Iranian interference in Venezuela “is dangerous in terms of financing terrorism, not in terms of recruiting terrorists.” He also pointed out that this link is not based on ideological issues, but on the interests of both parties that are under severe international sanctions. “The main concern is that Iran uses Venezuela as a source of financing.”
This relationship was strengthened this year given the recent domestic gasoline shortage that has compounded the complex crisis in Venezuela. In April, the Maduro regime turned to Iran to help repair oil refineries on the Paraguana Peninsula and to provide the country with the fuel it needed. Since then, and to date, about six cargo ships have reached Venezuela with Iranian fuel. “The newly appointed oil minister, Tareck El Aissami, and the regime’s special envoy to Iran, Lebanese/Colombian entrepreneur Alex Saab, apparently reached a gold-for-gas deal with Tehran,” the report recalls.
And it adds: “In a period of a month and a half, the Iranian airline, Mahan Air, ran seventeen flights and the National Oil Company of Iran (NIOC) shipped five tankers from Iran to Venezuela to provide spare parts from China, Iranian engineers and approximately 1.5 million barrels of gasoline for the fuel-hungry Maduro regime. Forty-nine months later, refineries on the Paraguaná Peninsula are still not operating, and Venezuela again faces fuel shortages. But, according to Bloomberg, the Islamic Republic was paid nearly US$500 million (nine tons) in gold ingots.”
In this respect, during the virtual conference Congressman Waltz said that it is crucial that the US government and the international community redouble their efforts “to stop the air bridge between Teheran and Caracas through Mahan Air.” The Republican said that it is necessary to “leverage international financial systems with allies” to cut that route.
He further stressed the sanctions policy that aims to sever the funding source of the Iranian and Venezuelan regimes: “If you are doing business with the Maduro regime, which is involved in extra-judicial killings, human rights abuses, and oppressing the Venezuelan people, you cannot do business with the United States government.”
Along these lines, Wasserman Schultz said that “international cooperation is absolutely critical to ensure that we continue to use a unified approach to pressure the Maduro regime to step down peacefully.” “We cannot stop the Maduro regime alone.”
The Iranian organizations involved in this gold-for-gas scheme – Mahan Air, NIOC and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Company (IRISL) – were sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for their connections with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
The report also notes that Hezbollah “operates through compartmentalized family clan structures that are part of the illegal economy controlled by the Maduro regime and the regime’s political machine and bureaucracy.” “Many of the clans are integrated into the Venezuelan state and society through the strong Lebanese and Syrian communities that spread to neighboring Colombia.”
However, Humire noted, “To be clear, the majority of the Lebanese communities in Venezuela are not involved in these activities. They are also victims and targets of the Hezbollah’s infiltration efforts.” “To understand these clans, one has to understand how corrupt regimes merge illegal activities with state functions, using terrorism and transnational crime as an extension of their foreign policies.”
The author of the report stressed the value of countries designating Hezbollah as a terrorist group: “If we do not have a common understanding of how we regard Hezbollah, we create misunderstandings among our institutions (…) Designating Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization creates a common language among the international community, mitigating political gaps and confusion.”
In this respect, he stated that Latin American countries must be “more proactive” in condemning the Lebanese group’s terrorist activities, and recalled that the government of former Argentine President Mauricio Macri “was the first in the history of Latin America to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization” in 2019. Later, countries such as Paraguay, Colombia and Honduras joined.
In this context, Wasserman Schultz, who also stressed the need to “actively fight Russia’s influence” in Venezuela, warned that the international community must commit itself to bring about change in Venezuela: “The United States can’t do it alone. We have to make sure that the OAS, the Lima Group, and other regional players are committed to actually helping apply that pressure.”
“The Venezuelan people need to decide their own future through free and transparent elections, with the involvement of all political parties,” he concluded.
Source: infobae