A Hizbullah operative surveilled the Panama Canal and documented structural vulnerabilities. Another collected intelligence on JFK Airport and New York law enforcement facilities. Approximately 400 Hizbullah field commanders and their families relocated to South America following the Lebanon ceasefire. Iranian drone production facilities operated 1,500 miles from Miami. This is not a list of hypothetical threats. This is infrastructure built over a decade. This paper documents how all of it was funded from a single source.
Two Rings of Fire. Iran constructed two concentric threat systems: the first encircles Israel through Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Jordan, and Egypt. The second encircled America through Venezuela, Nicaragua, and drug and terror networks from Brazil to Mexico. Both rings share command structures, personnel, and above all—a single funding source. Understanding the architecture reveals the chokepoint.
The Iraqi Paradox. Eighty-six percent of Iraqis, including 83 percent of Shiites, oppose Iranian influence. In 2019, Shiite protesters burned Iranian consulates in Najaf and Karbala—the holiest cities in Shiite Islam. Yet in the November 2025 elections, the pro-Iranian Coordination Framework secured 184 of 329 seats. The paper explains how institutional control persists without popular legitimacy—and why this constitutes a structural vulnerability.
The Authority Tehran Cannot Buy. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the supreme religious authority of Iraqi Shiite, has ruled repeatedly that weapons must remain under exclusive government control. This position denies religious legitimacy to pro-Iranian militias before their own target audience. The paper examines how these voices can be amplified.
The full analysis (141 footnotes) presents documented financial flows totaling $8–12 billion annually, maps smuggling and corruption networks, and offers concrete policy recommendations across five domains.
The window identified in this analysis has not closed. It has widened into what may be a generational opportunity.
