US President Donald J. Trump's condemnation of Venezuela's illegal leader Nicolas Maduro includes his role as the regime's leading force behind facilitating the transport of illegal drugs into the United States. The leader of Venezuela's democratic opposition, Maria Corrina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has accused Maduro of being chief of a criminal narcotics organization, "The Cartel of the Suns." US military forces have destroyed several speedboats laden with cocaine and other illegal drugs leaving Venezuelan ports
Perhaps more significant to US strategic interests is Maduro's cooperation with an anti-American alliance of autocracies in the Western Hemisphere. These include Russia, Cuba, China and Iran. The US has sent a fleet of military planes and 22 warships to the area, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded by threatening to dispatch missiles to target America's naval assets off the Venezuelan coast.
Maduro's regime is also alleged to have helped arm a terrorist faction of the Colombia-based Marxist terrorist group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in its decades-long campaign to overthrow Colombia's government. Venezuela's dictatorship, further, reportedly has narcotics trafficking ties to Hezbollah drug organizations such as the Lebanese-based Rada and Saleh Clans , which have cells in Venezuela and Colombia.
Iran's regime, both before and after a number of visits to Venezuela, delivered military drones to Venezuela and has been strengthening Venezuela's military, thereby enabling the Maduro regime to threaten its neighbors including Guyana, Trinidad and Colombia, as well as the US. Moreover, Iranian and Russian military advisors have been directing military drills on land and in the seas adjacent to Venezuela. Iranian vessels attached to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy in addition have delivered several high-speed missile attack boats to Venezuela.
Iran and Venezuela also long ago established an air bridge between Tehran and Caracas. The flights are manned by Iranian crews and enable both regimes to maintain secrecy in the possible global transport of weapons and terrorist operatives. In 2022, former IRGC/Quds Force aircraft flew several missions carrying only Iranian and Venezuelan nationals. One aircraft was a formerly Iranian-owned Boeing 747 with no cargo aboard.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, during a visit to Iran in the summer of 2022, signed a multidimensional, cooperation treaty. The pact includes agreements on science and technology as well as deals on agriculture, communications, culture and tourism. The Maduro regime has apparently been so welcoming to Iranian intelligence agents that some of Hezbollah's long-established Latin American network at the tri-border nexus of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay has been overtaken by Hezbollah activities on Venezuela's Margarita Island.
The Maduro regime's startling provision of one million hectares (roughly 2.5 million acres; nearly 4,000 square miles) of farmland to Iran in 2022 was kept under wraps until Iranian agrarian economist Ali Revanizadeh disclosed it to the Venezuelan media.
The land grant was ostensibly to be used to grow staple crops such as corn and soy beans allowing water-starved Iran to better feed its population, now in the throes of a crushing drought despite that professed effort. Iran's current use of Venezuela, however (here, here and here), combined with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), raise the possibility that Iran and its surrogate terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, might be using the vast acreage for military and terrorist operations.
Iran's alliance with Venezuela most importantly provides Tehran with opportunities to target US interests in Latin America and potentially the southern United States. More than 1500 Iranians attempted to enter the US through the southern border under the previous Biden administration; 700 were released into the US. It is unclear if these illegal aliens may well be fulfilling passive missions such as manning Iranian terrorist cells in the US, or commissioned to execute intelligence or terrorist-support operations.
Maduro's links to Iranian intelligence agencies are, in addition, being used to execute operations inside the US. Iranian terrorists planned to kidnap anti-Islamic regime activist Masih Alinejad from her Brooklyn home, and transport her by speedboat to Venezuela.
Latin America's Iranian Hezbollah network appears to be propping up the Maduro regime in an oil-for-gold scheme.
Cuba's role in Venezuela is even more invasive than that of Iran. US sources relate that there are about 15,000 Cubans in Venezuela. Some are counterintelligence officers, whose job is to purge any Venezuelan Army officers whose loyalty to Maduro is found suspect. One source claims that Maduro's personal bodyguards are also mostly Cuban. Venezuela reportedly hosts Cuban infantry troops commanded by two Cuban generals. Havana has reportedly also dispatched to Venezuela doctors, teachers, nurses, and engineers. These Cubans are presumably helping to fill the void left by Venezuela's middle-class professionals who emigrated abroad.
Russia's role in helping to buttress Maduro's regime includes arms sales, joint army and air force exercises, Russian naval warship visits, and the stationing of Russian defense advisors inside Venezuela. In turn, Russia receives Venezuelan oil at below-market prices.
China's support of the Maduro regime, which is financial, has reached a figure of $60 billion. Beijing's investments in Venezuela are largely tied to the country's oil industry, and Chinese loans have reportedly reached a figure of $250 million. Some of Venezuela's debt is being serviced by deliveries of petroleum to China. As other sectors of Venezuela's economy continue to decline, the Maduro government may be forced to pay back its debts to China by transferring more of his country's sovereign assets to Beijing.
More than fifty countries in the Euro-Atlantic and Hispanic Free World consider the Venezuelan regime, led by dictator Nicolás Maduro, to be illegitimate. This view also seems to be shared by millions of Venezuelans, nearly eight million of whom have fled the country's political oppression and economic collapse.
The main reason for the charge of Maduro's electoral illegitimacy stems from the view that Venezuela's presidential elections have been fraudulent. Opposition protests have failed to dislodge the socialist-led regime, which has so far been sustained by Chinese loans, Russian weapons and Cuban troops. The Venezuelan people, disenfranchised and disarmed, have, in addition, been bullied into submission by pro-regime neighborhood revolutionary leftist gangs called "colectivos."
The massive interference in Venezuela's affairs by US adversaries should raise concerns about the hemisphere's democracies and whether Caracas is still independent. American and Latin American democratic states need to monitor how much Venezuelan sovereignty has already been surrendered to authoritarian enemies of freedom. Venezuela's comprehensive links with its authoritarian allies must be severed forcibly if necessary to protect US interests and preserve the integrity of the Monroe Doctrine.
The Trump administration appears to be hoping that its current sanctions on Venezuela will be harsh enough for Maduro's closest supporters to oust him without the US having to become actively involved. US President Donald J. Trump recently suggested the possibility of a land invasion, about which he did not sound overtly enthusiastic. If nothing is done, however, Maduro will simply continue to wreck the formerly oil-rich country while its people carry on in squalor.
