In early January, Iran caught the world’s attention by threatening
to close the Strait of Hormuz and brandish shore-to-sea cruise missiles
in what was to be a 10-day naval exercise. That same week Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a five-nation trip through Latin
America to advance his country’s influence and operational capabilities
on the doorstep of the United States. It would take a very generous
view of the Islamic Republic to dismiss these simultaneous events as
mere coincidence. Tehran makes no secret of its determination to carry
its asymmetrical warfare to the Western Hemisphere. Iranian Defense
Minister Ahmad Vahidi was in Bolivia in May 2011 when he promised a
“tough and crushing response” to any U.S. offensive against Iran. Such
provocations are part of what should be understood as Iran’s five-year
push into the Americas.
The Obama administration and career U.S. diplomats have been slow to
recognize the threat posed by this creeping advance. Only after several
Republican presidential candidates highlighted the problem in a debate
on November 22 sponsored in part by the American Enterprise Institute in
Washington, D.C., did President Obama say, “[W]e take Iranian
activities, including in Venezuela, very seriously, and we will continue
to monitor them closely.” Unfortunately, merely monitoring
Iran’s foray into Latin America is not enough. The United States must
find its way toward adopting new forward-leaning policies that will
frustrate Tehran’s plans to threaten U.S. security and interests close
to home.
In the last five years, Iran has begun to take full advantage of
Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez’s unprecedented hospitality in the
Americas. Chávez’s petro-diplomacy has enabled Ahmadinejad to cultivate
partnerships with anti-U.S. regimes in Cuba, Ecuador, and Bolivia as
well. Today, a shadowy network of commercial and industrial enterprises
in several countries affords Iran a physical presence in proximity to
the borders of its greatest foe. It is increasingly clear that Iran
intends to use safe havens in these countries to deploy conventional and
unconventional weaponry that pose a direct threat to U.S. territory,
strategic waterways, and American allies.
Bracing for a potential showdown over its illicit nuclear program and
emboldened by Washington’s inattention to its activities in Latin
America, Iran is looking, logically, for some strategic advantage by
concocting a military threat near U.S. shores. And, as a notorious
promoter of international terrorism, it is working that angle. Iran is
exploiting its intimate ties with Venezuelan operatives as well as its
Quds Force agents’ connections to a decades-old network in the region to
proselytize, recruit, and train radicalized youth from Venezuela,
Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and beyond.
We now know that we underestimate Tehran’s audacity at our own peril.
Last October, American officials discovered an outrageous scheme by
Quds Force operatives to use Mexican narco-gangsters to bomb the heart
of the U.S. capital. The plot came to light only because U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents set aside conventional wisdom about
the limits on Tehran’s deadly designs. The plotters had hoped to
assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States in a bombing that
would have killed numerous other innocents. Even for a country that has
made terrorism and the violation of international norms vital aspects of
its statecraft, this was a brazen escalation in aggressive tactics, if
not a planned act of war. That it originated as an operation to be
launched with Latin American assistance should have alerted authorities
that there is an increased menace in our own hemisphere.
Nevertheless, policymakers in the Obama administration have remained
remarkably complacent. And the danger of Latin American involvement is
multidimensional, reaching beyond the assistance of Mexican foot
soldiers. Even as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) affirmed
in a recent report that foreign support is crucial to Iran’s capability
of developing a nuclear weapon,U.S. diplomatic, intelligence, and
security agencies are uncertain whether Iran is extracting ore from vast
uranium basins in Venezuela or Ecuador or whether Argentina has resumed
sharing nuclear technology with Tehran.
It is clear that some U.S. policymakers and putative experts on Iran
and international terrorism have been slow to adjust their thinking on
Tehran’s plotting in the Americas. Such figures, for example, often cite
a 2010 report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) when
they are looking to refute claims of Iran’s capabilities and intentions
in Latin America. For example, when Mitt Romney referred during a
Republican presidential debate to the Hezbollah network in Latin
America, politifact.com argued that the CRS report only mentioned
terrorist fundraising as a problem there. Remarkably, the only mention
of Venezuela in that 56-page primer is a footnote referring to
Venezuela’s high-level military complicity with Colombian
narco-terrorists. Policymakers, moreover, remain oblivious to the
growing threat because the State Department has failed to demand that
the intelligence community scrutinize the activities of Iran and
Hezbollah in the Western hemisphere.
An important exception to such neglect is the work of the Drug
Enforcement Administration and the Office of Foreign Assets Control of
the Department of the Treasury, which have sanctioned numerous
Venezuelan officials and entities for their complicity with and support
for Iran and international terrorism. Again, according to sources in
these agencies, State Department officers systematically resist the
application of sanctions against Venezuelan officials and entities, even
though those persons are playing an increasingly large role in Iran’s
operational capabilities near U.S. territory.
In order to facilitate its push into the Western Hemisphere, Iran
increased the number of its embassies in the region from 6 in 2005 to 10
in 2010. The real game-changer, however, has been the alliance
developed between Ahmadinejad and Chávez.
Hugo Chávez’s track record of anti-Americanism and support for
terrorist groups, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is
well established. In recent years, moreover, Venezuela’s Margarita
Island has become the principal safe haven and center of Hezbollah
operations in the Americas. As a terrorist extension of the regime in
Tehran, Hezbollah exists primarily to do Iran’s dirty work abroad.
Research from open sources, subject-matter experts, and sensitive
sources within various governments have identified at least two
parallel, collaborative terrorist networks growing at an alarming rate
in Latin America. One is operated by Venezuelan collaborators, and the
other is managed by the Quds Force. These networks encompass more than
80 operatives in at least 12 countries throughout the region, with the
greatest areas of focus being Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile.
Ghazi Nassereddine, a native of Lebanon who became a Venezuelan
citizen about 11 years ago and is now Venezuela’s second-ranking
diplomat in Syria, is the most prominent Hezbollah supporter in
Venezuela, because of his close relationship to Chávez’s Justice and
Interior Minister, Tarek el-Aissami. Along with at least two of his
brothers, Nassereddine manages a network to expand Hezbollah’s influence
in Venezuela and beyond.
Nassereddine’s brother Abdallah, a former member of the Venezuelan
congress, uses his position as the former vice president of the
Federation of Arab and American Entities in Latin America and the
president of its local chapter in Venezuela to maintain ties with
Islamic communities throughout the region. He currently resides on
Margarita Island, where he runs various money-laundering operations and
manages much of the business dealings of Hezbollah in Latin America,
according to documentary evidence obtained from Venezuelan sources.
Younger brother Oday is responsible for establishing paramilitary
training centers on Margarita Island. He is allegedly recruiting
Venezuelans through local círculos bolivarianos (neighborhood watch committees composed of the most radical Chávez followers) and sending them to Iran for further training.
Hojjat al-Eslam Mohsen Rabbani, who was the cultural attaché at the
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Buenos Aires, oversees a
parallel Hezbollah recruitment network from inside Iran. Rabbani is
currently the international-affairs adviser to the Al-Mostafa Al-Alam
Cultural Institute in Qom, which is tasked with the propagation of Shia
Islam. Rabbani, referred to by the influential Brazilian magazine Veja as
“the Terrorist Professor,” is a die-hard defender of the Iranian
revolution and the mastermind behind the two notorious terrorist attacks
against Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 which killed
144 people. At the request of Argentina, Interpol issued international
extradition warrants for Rabbani and others in March 2007.
At the time, Rabbani was credentialed as a cultural attaché at the
Iranian embassy in the Argentine capital, which he used as a staging
ground for extremist propaganda, recruitment, and training that
culminated in those two attacks. In fact, he continues to exploit that
network of Argentine converts to expand the reach of Iran and Hezbollah
by leveraging them in identifying and recruiting operatives throughout
the region for radicalization and terrorist training in Venezuela and
Iran (specifically, the city of Qom).
At least two mosques in Buenos Aires—Al Imam and At-Tauhid—are run by
Rabbani disciples. Sheik Abdallah Madani runs the Al Imam mosque, which
also serves as the headquarters of the Islamic-Argentine Association,
one of the most prominent Islamic cultural centers in Latin America.
Some of Rabbani’s disciples have taken what they have learned from
their mentor in Argentina and replicated it elsewhere in the region.
Sheik Karim Abdul Paz, an Argentine convert to Shiite Islam, studied
under Rabbani in Qom for five years and succeeded him at the At-Tauhid
mosque in Buenos Aires in 1993. Abdul Paz is now the imam of a cultural
center in Santiago, Chile.
Another Argentine convert to radical Islam and Rabbani disciple now
in Chile is Sheik Suhail Assad, currently a professor at the University
of Santiago. He lectures at universities throughout the region and
appears frequently on television. Most recently, he was in El Salvador
establishing relationships within the Muslim community.
But the real prize for the Rabbani network—and Hezbollah in
general—is Brazil, the economic powerhouse of the Americas and home to
some one million Muslims. One of Rabbani’s brothers lives there:
Mohammad Baquer Rabbani Razavi, the founding father of the Iranian
Association in Brazil, whom he visits and coordinates with
systematically. Another principal collaborator is Sheik Khaled Taki
Eldyn, a Sunni radical from the Sao Paulo Guarulhos mosque. Taki Eldyn,
who is active in ecumenical activities with the Shia mosques, also
serves as the secretary general of the Council of the Leaders of the
Societies and Islamic Affairs of Brazil. A sensitive source linked that
mosque to a network designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as
providing major financial and logistical support to Hezbollah. As far
back as 1995, Taki Eldyn hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 9/11
mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. According to sources in Brazilian
intelligence cited by Veja, at least 20 operatives from Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic Jihad are using Brazil as a hub for terrorist activity.
American and other government authorities have identified and
sanctioned some of the leaders of these networks, and U.S.
law-enforcement agencies—led by the Drug Enforcement Administration—have
made great efforts to assess and confront this threat by building cases
against foreign officials and sanctioning commercial entities that
support this criminal terror organization. This dangerous network,
however, requires a whole-government strategy, beginning with an
interagency review to assess the transnational, multifaceted nature of
the problem, educate friendly governments, and implement measures
unilaterally and with willing partners to disrupt and dismantle their
operations.
Ahmadinejad’s visit in January to Venezuela and elsewhere in the
region was clearly intended to shore up Iran’s interests in Latin
America as Chávez succumbs to cancer. Iran can be expected to make
common cause with Cuba, Russia, and China to protect its safe haven—if
necessary, by encouraging Chávez’s leftist movement to scuttle the
October 2012 elections in Venezuela. If the United States were more
vigilant at this critical post-Chávez transition phase, it might be
possible to spoil Iran’s plans by supporting a peaceful, electoral
solution.
Having fallen dangerously behind in its effort to stop Iran’s quest
for nuclear weapons, Washington can scarcely afford to cede ground to
the Islamic Republic in what is, in global terms, the United States’ own
backyard. Iran, emboldened by its success in eluding significant
Western sanctions and keeping American military force at bay, is
becoming more provocative. If Washington does not transition from
monitoring to acting against Iranian advances in Latin America, it may
find itself confronting a grave and growing threat that it can neither
diminish nor evade.
About the Author
Roger F. Noriega was ambassador to the Organization of American States from 2001–03 and assistant secretary of state from 2003–05.
He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the
managing director of Vision Americas LLC, and a contributor
to interamericansecuritywatch.com.