Iran’s ayatollahs closely collaborate with Hezbollah, the proxy of Iran’s Quds Force, which is the arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for exporting the Islamic revolution.

They have intensified their surge into South and Central America, from Chile (especially with the December election of President Gabriel Boric) to Mexico. They consider Latin America to be the soft underbelly of the United States.

Iran and Hezbollah have established an elaborate regional and global infrastructure of terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, counterfeiting, fundraising, training, Islamic proselytizing, recruitment and media centers. They also use the region to test advanced military systems. They forged strategic alliances with anti-U.S. regimes (e.g., Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia), breaking their international isolation and collaborating with drug cartels and terror organizations.

Since the November 2009 visit to Venezuela by then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has benefitted from uranium mines in Venezuela and Bolivia.

The entrenchment of Iran and Hezbollah in Latin America has undermined the United States’ regional and global posture, intensified Iran’s global war on the United States, and established an income-generating platform to support terrorism and the development of advanced military and terror capabilities.  

They have spread the Shi’ite Islamic revolution and global jihad through a multitude of mosques, seminaries and “Islamic cultural centers,” and installed a support platform for sleeper cells in the United States.

The U.S.-Mexico border has been targeted by Iran and Hezbollah, with the latter being involved in kidnapping, human smuggling, extortion, as well as drug and arms trafficking. They are expanding the proliferation of drugs from Mexico to the Middle East and Europe, sharing their terrorist experience with Mexican drug cartels (e.g., car bombing, improvised explosive devices, tunneling under the U.S. border).

However, the principal safe haven for Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, have been the lawless, corrupt and explosive tri-border areas (TBA) of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and Chile-Peru (the world’s largest cocaine producer)-Bolivia (the world’s third-largest cocaine producer), with their substantial population of Shi’ite Lebanese expatriates.