Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | November 11, 2025
*While superficial observers assume that the threat of the Ayatollah regime is limited to the Persian Gulf and the Middle East at large, the Ayatollah regime has entrenched itself in Latin America since 1980. The Iran-Venezuela axis has evolved in the areas of military, diplomacy, economy, oil, terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering. Iran views South and Central America as the soft underbelly of the USA, and a critical springboard to hit “The Great American Satan.” The Ayatollah regime – in collaboration with China, Russia and Hezbollah – considers Venezuela as a prime beachhead in the US’ own backyard, facilitating joint operations with Latin American drug cartels, terrorists and anti-US governments. The vast land of Venezuela (340,000sqm) serves sites for testing Iranian ballistic missiles, as well as terrorist training camps.
*The Ayatollah regime’s operation in Venezuela is second only to its operation in the tri-border areas of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and Chile-Bolivia-Peru. The Ayatollah regime and Hezbollah have provided a robust tailwind to the transformation of Venezuela into a hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime and international terrorism, undermining US homeland security.
*Iran has provided Venezuela with predator drones, and fast patrol boats equipped with anti-ship missiles. These boats were deployed to Venezuela’s Atlantic coast near the highly explosive oil(!), gold, diamonds and bauxite-rich 61,000sqm Guyana region of Essequibo (2/3 of Guyana!), which is claimed by Venezuela, and could evolve into a global conflict, involving the US, China and Russia. Venezuela is leveraging the supply of Iranian military hardware, in order to destabilize Latin America, threatening essential shipping lanes, and coercing Guyana into sweeping concession.
*In fact, Iran has enabled Venezuela to become the first Latin American country to develop its own predator/kamikaze drone program, located at Venezuela’s El Libertador air base. Iran has trained Venezuelan engineers, supplying Iran with critical design kits, and supervising-controlling the drone project. The project has the potential of becoming an asymmetric threat to regional stability (through the proliferation to pro-Iran governments), in general, and to the US (via the drug cartels), in particular. Joint military exercises have been conducted between Iran and Venezuela, sometimes with Chinese and Russian military units.
*The Iran?Venezuela axis has surged since the rise of Hugo Chavez in the early 2000s, advancing the 1,400-year-old fanatic, apocalyptic, megalomaniacal vision of the Ayatollah regime. This axis has been consistent with the Ayatollah’s anti-US Constitution, school curriculum, official media and overall domestic and external policy, which consider the US as the mega-obstacle to the implementation of the Ayatollah’s globally imperialistic vision. In June 2022, Iran and Venezuela signed a 20?year-strategic cooperation agreement, including oil, petrochemicals, defense and economy.
*Iran and Venezuela have facilitated each other’s efforts to bypass maximum-pressure US economic sanctions (e.g., employing barter trade – oil for military supplies, refineries repair and infrastructure projects), undermining the US attempts to isolate the Ayatollah regime. For example, Iran’s Mahan Air conducts direct flights between Caracas and Tehran, reportedly transferring Venezuelan gold in exchange for Iranian oil in violation of international sanctions. Furthermore, Caracas has sustained global travelling of thousands of Iranian officials (many of them are members of the rogue IRGC), by providing them with forged Venezuelan passports, irrespective of their role in the proliferation of terrorism and drug trafficking.
The bottom line
*Since 1979, the US’ diplomacy/negotiation and economic sanctions have failed to induce the Ayatollah regime into peaceful-coexistence, good-faith negotiation or abandoning its 1,400-year-old apocalyptic ideology.
*The US’ goal of ending, preventing and minimizing war and terrorism mandates the elimination of the chief epicenter of global war and terrorism – the Ayatollah regime.
*The only way to advance this US’ goal is to refrain from the failed policies of negotiation and economic sanctions, which have bolstered the anti-US capabilities of the Ayatollah regime. Advancing the US’ goal, while advancing the interests of most Iranians and all pro-US Arab regimes, mandates regime-change with NO troops on the ground.
*More on Iran’s threat to the US: https://theettingerreport.com/category/iran/
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