Rogue States as Terror Platforms: The Multi-Dimensional Threat to American and Western Security

The world has not paid sufficient attention to Venezuela’s significant involvement in international terror and drug trafficking—until now. Following recent U.S. actions in Venezuela, the full scope of this threat is emerging: a sophisticated narco-terrorist network linking Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hizbullah, and the Maduro regime, with critical support from Turkey, Russia, and China. This convergence represents more than a regional security challenge for the United States. It exemplifies a global pattern that threatens all Western democracies—one that Israelis understand intimately from our experience with Iranian-backed terror networks, but which Americans have been slow to recognize operating in their own hemisphere.¹

The evidence is overwhelming. In 2020, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Adel El Zabayar, a former Venezuelan National Assembly member and Maduro ally, with narco-terrorism offenses, including coordination with both Hizbullah and Hamas.² The criminal complaint detailed how El Zabayar received a Lebanese cargo plane full of military-grade weaponry—rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-103s, and sniper rifles. Court records described a 2014 meeting at Venezuela’s presidential palace where El Zabayar, Maduro, and others discussed arranging meetings between FARC leaders and the leaders of Hizbullah and Hamas.³ El Zabayar served as a go-between for Venezuela’s Cartel de Los Soles, which sought support from terrorist organizations with the explicit objective of flooding the United States with cocaine.

Historical Context

This is not opportunistic collaboration. This strategic coordination among America’s adversaries follows a historical pattern. In December 1989, under President George H.W. Bush, the United States invaded Panama to depose President Manuel Noriega, who was wanted for racketeering and drug trafficking. President Reagan had previously ordered military action in Grenada against Cuban military agents in 1983 and authorized strikes against Libya in 1986. The principle was clear then and remains valid today: when narco-terrorist regimes in our hemisphere threaten American security, the United States has both the right and the responsibility to act.

What distinguishes the current Venezuelan threat is its integration into what researchers Sami Kronenfeld and Yoel Guzansky identify as “the growing terrorism-crime spectrum.” Their analysis in Military and Strategic Affairs demonstrates that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are significantly involved in the international drug trade, both directly and through proxies like Hizbullah.⁴ This involvement provides the organization with access to sources of financing that bypass international sanctions placed on the Iranian regime, as well as sophisticated operational platforms that support subversive efforts aimed at the West. A defector from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards revealed the strategic intent behind this drug trafficking: “We were told that the drugs will destroy the sons and daughters of the West, and that we must kill them. Their lives are worth less because they are not Muslims.”⁵

The scope of the Iranian regime’s foreign operations in Venezuela extends far beyond narcotics. Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and leading expert on Iranian operations in Latin America, describes the strategic reality bluntly: “Venezuela has opened its doors to Iran and Hizbullah, giving them full access to Latin America. Venezuela is their forward operating base in the Western Hemisphere. Iran and Hizbullah run many of their overt and covert activities from there.”⁶ Tehran has established a drone factory in Venezuela where Venezuelans produce Iranian military UAVs. The recently foiled terrorist plot to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Mexico was planned by Iranian operatives in Caracas. In 2021, U.S. authorities thwarted an Iranian plot to kidnap exiled journalist Masih Alinejad from her Brooklyn home and transport her by speedboat to Venezuela, and from there to Iran.

Ottolenghi’s testimony before the U.S. Congress revealed that Venezuela’s former Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami—later indicted on drug trafficking charges—ordered the issuance of 173 Venezuelan passports from the Venezuelan embassy in Iraq, including to Hizbullah members. As Ottolenghi notes, “The Iranians made Caracas the hub of all their propaganda and soft power operations in the region, including their Spanish-language 24/7 news network.” Iran has established a permanent presence in Caracas for its missionary network under the umbrella of the sanctioned Al-Mustafa International University.

The Iranian-Hizbullah-Venezuelan axis operates through well-established networks. As Lt.-Col. Michael Segall documented in a 2011 analysis, Iran uses Latin America as a springboard for operations against the United States.⁷ The tri-border area where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet has become a critical node in this network. DEA official Anthony Placido testified in 2010 that “DTOs based in the Tri-border Area have ties to radical Islamic terrorist groups such as Hizbullah,” and that “there are numerous reports of cocaine proceeds entering the coffers of Islamic Radical Groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas in Europe and the Middle East.”

Venezuela’s embrace of Hamas and Hizbullah predates even these narco-terror operations. In 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative and presidential elections and faced isolation from Western governments, Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel announced his country would welcome Hamas leaders “with pleasure.” Under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has provided these terrorist organizations with diplomatic legitimacy, operational space, and connections to transnational criminal networks.⁸ JCFA Senior Fellow Lenny Ben-David revealed that Venezuelan President Maduro, during a 2022 visit to Tehran, declared Venezuela part of the “resistance axis” that “exists throughout the world; it exists in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in the Caribbean.” Ben-David notes that “largely driven by narcotics trafficking, Hizbullah operatives can move to and from Venezuela discretely and many have roots in Venezuela’s sizable Lebanese community. Embedded within Maduro’s security apparatus and intelligence network, Hizbullah-linked agents and operatives launder money for the Iranian-backed terrorist organization.”⁹

The one million-strong Lebanese diaspora in Venezuela, many of whom fled the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s, provides Hizbullah with a ready recruitment pool. Ottolenghi explains the operational significance: “Venezuela is a key transit point for cocaine, and Hizbullah has an important network of supportive businesses in Venezuela, many with connections to Colombia, Panama and the Dutch Antilles, which are then used to money-launder drug revenues.”¹⁰

The international dimensions of this threat extend beyond Iran and Venezuela. Turkey’s role, as documented by Sinan Ciddi in the Long War Journal, has been crucial in sustaining the Maduro regime despite the imposition of sanctions. President Erdogan became a key Maduro backer, providing diplomatic cover, economic engagement, and access to international markets. Bilateral trade between Turkey and Venezuela surged from less than $200 million in 2017 to more than $1.1 billion in 2018, with Turkish officials targeting $5 billion annually.¹¹ Senator Lindsey Graham’s comment on Air Force One—that Maduro “could have been in Turkey”—underscored how deeply Turkey had committed to protecting the Venezuelan strongman. Gold mining became central to the Turkey-Venezuela relationship, with Turkey importing nearly $900 million in Venezuelan gold in 2018, helping Caracas convert illicitly mined bullion into hard currency while bypassing sanctions.

But the Turkish connection represents only one dimension of a much broader strategic challenge. Russia and China have transformed Venezuela into a platform for what they call “hybrid warfare,” a comprehensive military and soft power approach to undermining American power that extends far beyond conventional military capabilities. Russia’s concept of gibridnaya voyna (hybrid war) and China’s “three warfares” doctrine share a fundamental premise: you are in an all-out war with competitors even before a shot is fired. You wage war against their culture, their society, their economic stability—and you compete ruthlessly.

This is why approximately 80 percent of Venezuela’s oil flows to China. China and Russia see Venezuela not merely as an economic opportunity but as a strategic asset in their campaign against American hegemony. They help Venezuela evade sanctions, provide military equipment and training, and use Venezuelan territory as a base for operations that directly threaten U.S. security. Iran has provided Venezuela with Peykaap fastboats armed with anti-ship missiles and UAVs—vehicles that can be used for both drug smuggling and military operations in the Caribbean. The Rand Corporation warns that “these Iranian weapon systems present a legitimate threat to maritime security in the Caribbean region.”

The pattern extends globally. The Lady R scandal in South Africa demonstrated how this anti-American axis coordinates sanctions evasion. In December 2022, the Russian cargo ship Lady R mysteriously appeared at a South African naval base after turning off its marine tracking system. Under U.S. sanctions, the vessel was alleged to have loaded South African weapons for use by Russia against Ukraine. South Africa’s “non-aligned” stance collapsed into active support for the Russian war effort. This global coordination—from Caracas to Cape Town, from Tehran to Beijing—reveals the scope of the narco-terror strategic challenge America faces.

Many American political commentators, particularly those who have opposed U.S. support for Ukraine, fail to understand or underemphasize the comprehensive nature of this threat. They do not grasp that Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China view themselves as being in a state of permanent conflict with the United States—a conflict prosecuted through all available means, including narco-terrorism. China conducts extensive trade with the United States while simultaneously waging “three warfares” against American interests: psychological warfare, media warfare, and legal warfare. America may not see them as enemies, but they have long since identified America as their primary adversary.

The American public remains largely unaware of Venezuela’s role in this broader campaign. Most Americans do not know that their country faces a narco-terrorist infrastructure operating from Latin America with Iranian, Chinese, Russian, and Turkish backing. Many are unaware that Hizbullah maintains operational cells throughout the Western hemisphere, that Venezuelan cocaine finances terrorism in the Middle East, and that Iranian military advisers have helped transform Venezuela into what Ottolenghi describes as a “forward operating base” against the United States.

President Trump appears to have recognized that this is not merely about drug trafficking or regional instability. This is about a terror machine in America’s backyard, built and sustained by the “axis of evil” linking Venezuela, Russia, China, and Iran. The choice facing American policymakers is stark: do we allow this hostile coalition to control critical energy resources and operate freely in our hemisphere, or do we recognize the threat and respond decisively? History provides clear guidance. Reagan understood it in Grenada. Bush understood it in Panama. The strategic imperative remains unchanged: America cannot permit narco-terrorist regimes, backed by hostile great powers, to threaten the United States in its own backyard.

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Notes