Under the authoritarian rule of President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has become a hub for illicit drug trafficking and a sanctuary for terrorist organizations. The Maduro regime has cultivated mutually beneficial relationships with armed groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah and Colombia's Marxist rebel group ELN, allowing them to exploit Venezuela's lawless environment for their own nefarious ends. The Maduro regime's connections with terrorist-criminal elements and drug cartels have transformed the country into a destabilizing force in the Western Hemisphere with far-reaching implications for U.S. national security. Moreover, after Maduro failed to safeguard an open and free election in July 2024, it is time for the U.S. to designate the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Iran and Venezuela
In this context, Venezuela's role as an increasingly close partner to Iran, which the U.S. government labels as “the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism,” warrants attention. The leadership in Tehran has consistently promoted its so-called “axis of resistance” as a unified global anti-imperialist project. Ideologically, the regimes in Venezuela and Iran both harbor fervent anti-American sentiments and preside over authoritarian systems of government. Venezuela and Iran have both vocally supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine and opposed the U.S.-led international rules-based order. These shared political stances have drawn the two nations closer together, effectively forging a quasi-alliance between Caracas and Tehran. As the world's attention focuses on the Israel-Palestine conflict, one must not forget that the long arm of the Iranian state, with Venezuela as its Latin American spearhead, extends into the Western hemisphere.
This ideological kinship has facilitated the deepening of ties between Caracas and Tehran, allowing them to collaborate to undermine U.S. national interests and further entrench their respective illiberal governance models. In a propaganda poster produced by the office of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Maduro is featured alongside other prominent pro-Iranian leaders, such as Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. During a June 2022 trip to Tehran, in which the two sides signed a 20-year cooperation agreement, Maduro told his Iranian counterparts (and was repeated in Iranian state-run media) that Venezuela was part of this axis and that it “exists throughout the world; it exists in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America and in the Caribbean.”
Officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran's elite paramilitary force which is labeled as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, have also been active in Venezuela. The June 2022 detention of a Venezuelan-owned cargo plane in Argentina, which had five Iranian crewmembers including an ex-IRGC commander and IRGC-Quds Force members onboard, highlighted the deepening ties between the IRGC and Caracas. Moreover, Maduro has allowed Iran to establish production facilities for its military drones within its borders and also buys Iranian armed drones. Venezuela also recently purchased Iranian-made Peykaap speedboats, armed with anti-ship missiles. Tehran has turned Venezuela into its Latin American weapons depot and arms trafficking hub. Considering recent revanchist claims of Guyanese territory by Venezuelan lawmakers, these Iranian weapon systems present a legitimate threat to maritime security in the Caribbean region.
Tehran has turned Venezuela into its Latin American weapons depot and arms trafficking hub.
Share on TwitterIn 2021, the FBI charged four Iranian intelligence agents in absentia for their alleged involvement in a plot to abduct an Iranian dissident residing in the U.S. The plan reportedly entailed transporting the human rights activist to Venezuela via speedboat and then forcibly taking her back to Iran. It is clear that Tehran regards Venezuela as the base for their subversive anti-democratic operations in the Western hemisphere and that Maduro openly allows Iran to use his country's territory for this sort of terrorism.
Iran's relations with Venezuela go beyond shared anti-American rhetoric and military-intelligence ties. The two governments have recently sought closer economic ties as a way to evade U.S. sanctions and avoid international isolation. In the past two years, Iran has invested heavily in repairing Venezuela oil refineries and assisting Maduro's regime with reviving the country's struggling oil industry. In 2019, amidst fuel shortages in Venezuela, Iran sent five oil tankers to the Latin American nation to improve their gasoline supplies.
Hezbollah and Venezuela
Following the recent Iranian missile attack on Israel, it is necessary to consider the global reach of Iranian proxies and allies, particularly the well-sourced Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. Using Caracas as a base for their subversive activities in Latin America, Hezbollah operates a criminal-terror network in the tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina that generates important revenue for the terrorist organization. Largely driven by narcotics trafficking, Hezbollah operatives can largely 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, Hezbollah-linked agents and operatives launder money for the Iranian-backed terrorist organization and its sponsors in Tehran.
This clandestine foothold in Venezuela provides Iran and Hezbollah with closer access to the U.S. homeland as well as potential soft military targets in the Western hemisphere. Infamously, in 1992, Hezbollah with Iranian support bombed the Israeli embassy in Argentina and two years later Hezbollah terrorists attacked a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. These two incidents showcased that Iranian-sponsored terrorism extends far beyond the Middle East and can wreak havoc on vulnerable Jewish communities in the Western hemisphere.
This clandestine foothold in Venezuela provides Iran and Hezbollah with closer access to the U.S. homeland as well as potential soft military targets in the Western hemisphere.
Share on TwitterFARC Dissidents, the ELN, and the Venezuelan Government
In 2016, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Colombian Marxist rebel group and U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, reached a historic peace deal with the Colombian government to end their decades-long armed conflict. Despite this historical agreement, not all FARC members put down their weapons in 2017. Several FARC splinter factions continued their armed struggle against the Colombian government and sustained their lucrative narco-trafficking and illegal mining enterprises.
The Bolivarian Republic forged strategic alliances with some of these FARC dissident groups, most notably the “Eastern Joint Command” faction led by former FARC guerilla commander Gentil Duarte and the “Second Marquetalia” group led by former FARC leader Ivan Marquez. Leveraging shared ideological views of revolutionary socialism and opposition to the Colombian “bourgeois” state, Maduro's security services provided a safe haven and drug transit corridors to these FARC dissident fronts. The porous border areas of Venezuela served as vital rear bases for FARC dissidents on the run from the Colombian military.
On March 26, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a sweeping array of criminal charges against Maduro and 14 other current and former senior Venezuelan government officials. The allegations included narco-terrorism offenses that linked top regime officials with FARC rebels and the drug cartel “Cartel of the Suns” (Cartel de los Soles). According to the indictment, senior officials in the Bolivarian Republic, including Maduro himself, partnered with FARC and the Cartel of the Suns to “flood” the U.S. with cocaine. In order to exploit illicit criminal activity and receive kickbacks from the drug trade, Maduro loyalists in the government and military received preferential postings in FARC sanctuaries and regional cartel strongholds.
Within the last decade, the Maduro regime has strengthened their ties with another Colombian Marxist rebel group and U.S.-designated terrorist organization, the ELN (the National Liberation Army). Historically, the ELN was much smaller than FARC with around 2,500 members and more closely affiliated with the Cuban revolutionary model of foco theory. However, after the 2016 peace talks between FARC and Bogota, ELN numbers nearly doubled, and Caracas increased its connections with the Cuban-inspired insurgency. The ELN sees the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as ideological kin and the type of Marxian revolutionary state it aspires to establish in Colombia. Unlike their rivals in the now defunct FARC, the ELN operates in a more decentralized and horizontal control and command structure.
In 2022, the battle-hardened ELN launched ambushes and military assaults against FARC dissident factions on the largely unmonitored Colombian-Venezuelan border. Venezuelan security forces reportedly participated in joint military operations with ELN guerrilla fighters. With diminishing oil profits, Maduro has increasingly depended on cash flows from illegal mines, drug trade, and contraband activity enabled by the ELN guerillas. The Bolivarian Republic provides much-needed sanctuary to the ELN and sees the Colombian communist guerillas as an important buffer against foreign military intervention and domestic political rivals aimed at regime change in Caracas. With considerable experience in guerilla warfare, the ELN essentially operates as the Praetorian guard for Maduro's regime and serves as an important source of tactical knowhow.
Conclusion
Under Maduro's leadership, Venezuela has essentially become a narco-state. Beneath the veneer rhetoric of anti-imperialism and Bolivarian socialism, Maduro and his associates exploit a variety of criminal enterprises, most prominently drug trafficking and illegal mining. By actively supporting guerilla insurgencies in neighboring Colombia, the Venezuelan government reaps both military and economic benefits from this violence. Moreover, the Iranian regime sees Maduro's regime as a useful partner in its global struggle against U.S.-Israeli interests.
In light of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, this strengthened Tehran-Hezbollah-Caracas axis now presents a major security threat for the Latin American and Caribbean region. The U.S. government should designate Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism and crack down on the Bolivarian Republic's brazen violation of international law. Given the Venezuelan leadership's profound corruption, stealing of elections, and self-enrichment through alliances with U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal syndicates, the Maduro regime warrants being designated alongside other pariah states, such as Syria and Iran, that sponsor international terrorism and promote global instability.
