The Biden administration, which is attempting to save the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran, has not responded to Iran’s efforts to expand its influence in South America and damage American interests and security.
According to James Phillips, a senior research fellow for international policy at the Heritage Foundation, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are far more actively involved in subversive and assassination activities than is generally acknowledged, as reported by Fox News.
Phillips cited an attempt in 2011 to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighbourhood, saying that Iranian agents sought to collaborate with a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the operation on American territory.
“This has been going on for a long time,” Phillips said. “This was over ten years ago.”
In recent years, Iran’s involvement in Latin America has appeared to be resuming. Most recently, a mysterious plane flying the Venezuelan flag showed up in Argentina last month.
With a crew of 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians, one of whom was a senior Iranian official, the aircraft, which belonged to an Iranian operator that the United States had sanctioned, arrived at Ezeiza.
The jet was then seized, and an inquiry was started, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal, but it’s still unclear why it was permitted to land in Argentina and what it was doing there.
While it was reported that the pilot of the jet was Gholamreza Ghasemi, a board member and manager of Fars Air Qeshm, an Iranian airline that is subject to U.S. sanctions, Argentinian federal police examined the plane and discovered equipment utilised for military cyber defence operations on board.
Alberto Fernández, the president of Argentina, has insisted that there was nothing suspicious about the plane, but the country’s security minister has asserted that the pilot’s name was just coincidentally Ghasemi. This assertion has been refuted by Paraguayan intelligence, and it has been questioned by members of the Argentine Congress.
Iranian cooperation with democratic Argentina would be a more concerning development for the U.S. in the region than Iran’s long-standing alliance with Venezuela, a nation that has a history of trying to undermine American interests.
Both Iran and Argentina submitted membership applications to the BRICS, a group of five developing nations that also includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, a week before the jet touched down in Ezeiza.
As a rival to U.S.-dominated Western alliances, the group, which has conducted an annual summit since 2009, has a substantial impact on international politics.
According to a representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, joining the BRICS would have benefits for both sides “While the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russia bragged that the United States was failing to curtail its global influence.
Russia, which under President Vladimir Putin has made it a goal to undercut U.S. dominance in the region, would benefit from Iranian influence in South America.
As part of a long-term plan to establish a permanent presence in the region, Moscow has been strengthening ties with authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, according to Rebekah Koffler, the president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, a former DIA intelligence officer, and the author of “According to Fox News, Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America.
As much of the world works to isolate Russia, according to Koffler, Russia’s goals include access to new markets and resources as well as showing the United States that it can conduct military operations in its neighbourhood.
As a deterrent, Russia wants to position a powerful force on its doorstep, Koffler said. Should Washington interfere with Putin’s plans to retake control of former Soviet states like Ukraine, Moscow could then use that force.
There are other signs that Iran is attempting to increase its influence in Latin America in addition to the unexplained plane in Argentina. Mohsen Rezaee, the vice president for economic affairs of Iran, attended Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua’s inauguration earlier this year as a guest of honour.
For reportedly planning the 1994 bombing of a Jewish institution in Buenos Aires, Rezaee, a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, is wanted in Argentina.
International observers have often accused Ortega of having dictatorial policies because of his reputation as a divisive leader.
The State Department has criticised his support for “radical regimes” in Cuba and Iran as well as his repeated attempts to undermine capitalism and U.S. interests. During his time in power, Nicaragua has been subject to numerous U.S. sanctions.
Iran’s influence appears to have spread as far north as Mexico, according to research. The European Union and the United States have designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.
Iran provides Hezbollah with military training, equipment, and financial support. For the majority of the past decade, Hezbollah has been gaining ground in Latin America, and more recently, it has made contacts with drug cartels in Mexico.
Adalberto Fructuoso Comparan-Rodriguez, a former mayor of Aguililla, Mexico, and accused boss of the United Cartels in Michoacán, Mexico, were both extradited to the United States last month, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
The accusations state that Comparan-Rodriguez met a narcotics dealer thought to be connected to Hezbollah in Cali, Colombia.
The trafficker was informed by Comparan-Rodriguez and a companion that they could provide hundreds of kilogrammes of methamphetamine.
As a result, the pair agreed to send 500 kilogrammes of the drug from Mexico to Texas, where it was then shipped to Miami.
After Compare-Rodriguez was detained by Guatemalan police, law enforcement authorities were able to intercept the drugs before they reached the streets, but the incident showed Hezbollah’s expanding presence in Latin America.
Hezbollah has a long history of activity in the region between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay’s three borders; more recently, the group has extended its influence to Venezuela.
According to Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state, the terrorist group now has “active cells” in Venezuela that endanger American security.
At the time, he claimed that “people don’t realise that Hezbollah has active cells – the Iranians are affecting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America.” For the sake of America, we must eliminate that risk.
The current administration, however, has adopted a different strategy to counter Iran’s threat, abandoning the Trump administration’s strategy of maximum pressure in favour of attempting to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from the Obama administration, more popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal.
To preserve some of outgoing President Obama’s legacy, Phillips claimed that the Biden administration’s complacent stance toward Iran has been a mistake.
According to Phillips, “the Biden administration has painted itself into a corner on Iran sanctions.” The Trump administration “greatly miscalculated the power it would require to obtain another nuclear deal from Iran…it let the maximum pressure sanctions policy slip off the gas.”
The reduced amount of leverage has simply served to give Iran more confidence, which has increased its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons in addition to its activities in Latin America.
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According to Phillips, Iran is about to acquire a nuclear weapon. They already have enough highly enriched uranium to construct a nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks.
Phillips contends that the government must show a realistic threat of using military force to thwart Iran’s expanding ambitions rather than relying solely on sanctions to achieve its goals.
He asserted that sanctions by themselves “won’t stop Iran’s nuclear programme any more than they stopped North Korea’s.” “A credible threat of the effective use of force would deter Iran,”
