Machiavelli warned centuries ago in his seminal work The Prince: When threats are identified well in advance, they can be quickly addressed—but “when, for lack of diagnosis, they are allowed to grow in such a way that everyone can recognize them, remedies are too late.”

There is perhaps no better example of the dramatic consequences of such a failure than the current situation with the Islamic State (also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL). Symptoms were overlooked or dismissed. No regimen was implemented to prevent the disease from spreading. ISIL metastasized into a global threat.

Boko Haram in Nigeria, which just declared its own Islamic caliphate and is wreaking havoc beyond Borno and Yobe, also illustrates Machiavelli’s point. By late 2012, it had carried out numerous deadly attacks, prompting Congress to highlight the escalating danger Boko Haram posed and the need to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization. It took more than a year and many more victims for such a determination to take place.

Regrettably, the United States appears intent on repeating the same mistakes with Iran.

July 20 came and went without an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. The multiparty talks were extended for four months and additional sanctions relief provided to the Iranian regime. This marks yet another victory for Tehran. Once again, Iranian negotiators fooled the rest of the world into believing that it is a responsible stakeholder, rather than a gross human-rights violator and state sponsor of terrorists determined to be nuclear-weapons capable.

The regime’s immediate priority is influencing or dictating developments in its neighborhood—Iraq, Gaza strip, Syria, Lebanon and certain Gulf states. However, it is expanding alliances elsewhere to encircle and threaten perceived enemies, while mitigating actual or potential costs resulting from its policies. One of the regions that Iranian officials and agents consider fertile ground and that the regime has been tilling for some time is the Western Hemisphere.

Iran-Western Hemisphere

Iran’s first vice president Eshaq Jahangiri recently met with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. As many other Iranian leaders have done before in visits to the Americas, Jahangiri described Iranian-Venezuelan relations as “fundamental” and emphasized Tehran’s continued willingness to expand ties at all levels. Venezuela’s Ambassador to Tehran told Fars News last month that Venezuela is prepared to become a hub for Iranian exports to other Latin American nations. While the specifics may differ, this is not surprising. The Iranian regime has sought to “export” its radical ideology, using all means necessary, since the onset of its Islamist revolution.

Iranian-backed entities, such as The House of Latin America in Iran, continue to sprout throughout the region with the seemingly benign aim of “boosting relations between the Iranian people and those of Latin America.” However, their true objective appears to be promoting violence and repression and damaging U.S. interests.

The House of Latin America has hosted Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, a visit to Iran by the son and daughter of one of the butchers of Latin America, Che Guevara, and has translated books into Farsi by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. In fact, The House of Latin America in Iran recently announced it will be publishing a compendium of articles and other papers by the former Cuban dictator and, in conjunction with the “campaign of solidarity between Iran and Cuba,” a book on Cuba and international affairs.

The bilateral relations between these pariah states entered a new phase after a May 2001 visit by Fidel Castro to Iran. During a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Castro declared: “Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees.” For his part, Khamenei affirmed: “The United States is weak and extremely vulnerable today…US grandeur can be broken.”

International experts and the U.S. Congress have documented a decades-long systematic effort to establish clandestine intelligence stations and operatives, using official Iranian diplomatic facilities, as well as educational, religious and cultural institutions as cover for their terrorist network. And U.S. intelligence and military officials have in recent years, expressed concerns about a growing presence in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela, of members of Iran’s elite Qods Force, which spearheads Tehran’s global terrorist efforts and is involved in the regime’s missile and nuclear activities.

Networks have been uncovered operating in Latin America that benefit Iran and its partners in terrorism including narcotraffickers, smugglers of consumer goods, counterfeiters, money launderers using front businesses, exchange houses and U.S. financial institutions. In the United States, sanctions have been imposed on individuals or entities in the region believed to be violating Iran-related sanctions. Criminal action has also been undertaken when activities cross into the U.S. homeland. And investigations continue to this day. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Latin America, as a national-security priority, barely registers with the Executive Branch when decisions are being made on strategy, assets, resources and funding to counter vital threats, such as terrorism and proliferation. The Quadrennial Defense Review for 2014, for example, placed greater emphasis on global climate change than on security developments in the Hemisphere.

Latin America and the Caribbean tend to be looked at through the prism of drugs, criminal violence or illegal immigration. Anything that challenges this myopic view, such as Iran expanding its operational reach into the region, is either ignored or the threat minimized to justify the way things have always been done. On numerous instances, U.S. agencies responsible for an avalanche of data about the transnational, cross-regional nexus between narcotrafficking, arms networks and terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, have been marginalized and the Western Hemisphere links to these particular security risks erroneously set aside or treated solely as “law-enforcement matters.”

The Western Hemisphere, at minimum, must be integrated into broader national-security discussions.

The original 9/11 Commission report warned against compartmentalizing and ignoring potential dangers or signs of escalation. It highlighted as a key lesson from the 9/11 attacks the need to deny sanctuaries to terrorist groups. This was reaffirmed in the ten-year review released by leading members of the Commission. “Geographic sanctuaries,” the Commissioners recently stated, “enable terrorist groups to gather, indoctrinate and train recruits, and they offer breathing space in which to develop complex plots.” While referring primarily to the broader Middle East, they noted the evolution of terrorism in other areas and the need to prepare for both current and emerging threats. It is a warning that applies globally as terrorism knows no boundaries.

Refocusing on a national-security-based approach to terrorism and Iranian activities in Latin America

The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States noted a complex international terrorist operation aimed at launching a significant or “catastrophic” attack cannot do so with just anyone, at any time or from just anywhere. A number of components would be required: “time, space” for adequate planning; “a command structure…possessing the…contacts to assemble needed people, money, and materials”; “opportunity and space to recruit, train, and select operatives with the needed skills and dedication”; “a logistics network able to securely manage the travel of operatives, move money, and transport resources (like explosives) where they need to go”; “reliable communications between coordinators and operatives;” and “opportunity to test the workability of the plan.”

When it comes to Iran in the Americas, we have several starting points or events that pre-date the 09/11 terrorist attacks and help build the case that Iran and its surrogates have, or are building, the capability cited in the 9/11 report to inflict harm on the United States, our interests and allies. Seven years before 9/11, the July 18, 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina clearly demonstrated that the region provided Hezbollah with all it needed to carry out a complex operation in the United States’ backyard.

Was AMIA an isolated incident or part of a broader strategy? Could the United States, Israel or regional allies have anticipated the AMIA attack? Were tripwires or warning signs missed?

AMIA attack as test for future operations targeting the United States and its interests

On March 17, 1992, a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck filled with explosives into the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. The attack was a prelude to more attacks just two years later. This explosion destroyed the embassy, a Catholic church and a nearby school building. Twenty-nine people were killed and over 200 wounded. A group identifying itself as Islamic Jihad Organization claimed responsibility for the attack, but many experts believe this group had backing from and ties to Iran and Hezbollah.

The destruction caused by the 1992 attack on Israel’s diplomatic mission would pale in comparison to the death toll and injuries that would come two years later with the AMIA bombing. Many years of meticulous investigations by Argentine prosecutors have definitively concluded that the AMIA attack was “decided and organized by the highest leaders” of the Iranian government who, in turn, “entrusted its execution to the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.” It was approved in advance by: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's then foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran's then minister of security and intelligence Ali Fallahijan and Iran’s then so-called president, described as a “moderate” by the international media and some Western leaders, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

On November 9, 2006, Argentine Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, pursuant to the request from AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, issued arrest warrants for Rafsanjani, Fallahijan and Velayati, as well as:

·  Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC);

·  Ahmad Vahidi, a former commander of the elite Al-Quds Force of the IRGC;

·  Hadi Soleimanpour, a former Iranian ambassador to Argentina;

·  Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires;

·  Ahmad Reza Asghari, a former official at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires; and

·  Imad Moughnieh, a leading operations chief of Hezbollah.

Soon thereafter, INTERPOL issued Red Notices for Hezbollah operative Moughnieh and for Iranian officials Fallahijan, Rezaei, Vahidi, Rabbani and Asgari. This allows for the global circulation of warrants for the arrest and extradition of these individuals. To date, none have been detained and arrested. There has been no accountability. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime has rewarded many of the AMIA terrorists with more senior and influential posts throughout the years.

A great deal more must be done to bring these terrorists to justice, including by the United States and its allies. For example, only Vahidi is listed on the U.S. Treasury Department’s watch list or SDN list. This oversight must be immediately corrected and terrorism-related sanctions imposed on all AMIA perpetrators. International collaboration is also needed to bring these individuals to justice, including, but not limited to, arrest and prosecution. This would send a strong message to Iran, Hezbollah, other global terrorists and their state sponsors, that they will be made to suffer the consequences of their actions.

Target: The United States

Based on his experience investigating Iran’s activities leading up to and following the AMIA attack, Alberto Nisman has stressed that the Iranian regime uses “terrorism as a mechanism of its foreign policy” in support of “its final aim…to export its radicalized vision of Islam and to eliminate the enemies of the regime.”

Iran’s mullahs deemed the United States an enemy long before the 1990s attacks in Argentina. The regime made its intentions abundantly clear at the onset of the Iranian Revolution. In November 1979, it seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage for over a year, subjecting them to psychological and physical torture. This initiated decades of terrorist attacks, directly or through its proxies, that claimed the lives of Americans and other victims. This was more than just a symbolic event. Many, including a former CIA official and former hostage, believe the global war on terrorism began then. The West just did not begin to notice until much later. The same is true of AMIA and the Israeli Embassy attacks.

To Iran, the United States is the “Great Satan” and must be destroyed. The regime will attack our friends, allies, and interests until it can strike in the U.S.

The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with a bomb at a busy Washington, D.C. restaurant may be an indication of what is to come. The federal complaint filed by U.S. prosecutors in this matter, as well as statements by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, referred to Iran’s role in conceiving, sponsoring and directing the plot.

One of the men charged, Gholam Shakuri, has a direct link to the Iranian regime. Shakuri was described in Department of Justice documents on the case as an Iran-based member of the “Qods Force, which is a special operations unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).” The investigation into this foiled plot revealed that the co-conspirator, Manssor Arbabsiar, met on a number of occasions in Mexico with a DEA confidential source posing as part of a drug cartel. According to the indictment, the Iranian-orchestrated plan was to hire violent narcotraffickers to carry out the assassination using deadly explosives, “without care or concern for the mass casualties that would result.”

This case was one of many developments prompting the passage and enactment into law of the Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act. The Act declares U.S. policy as countering Iran’s growing presence and activities in the Hemisphere. It called for the development of a comprehensive strategy to address this problem and for Congress to be kept regularly informed of developments pertaining both to the threat and U.S. approach.

Report to Congress

The Department of State submitted to Congress in July 2013 the report and strategy required by this Act, claiming that Iranian influence in the Hemisphere was waning and suggesting that there was no need to alter the U.S. approach. Members of Congress, U.S. and international experts disputed the conclusions in the report based on mounting evidence to the contrary, including increased bilateral agreements and diplomatic missions; greater presence of agents from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the IRGC and Qods Force.

An in-depth 2012 study on the MOIS, for example, conducted by the Library of Congress’ Federal Research Division under an Interagency Agreement with the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program, described some of the methods and tactics the Iranian spy service employs to expand its operational reach and capacity. Agents “may operate undercover as diplomats in Iranian embassies or in other occupations in companies such as Iran Air, branches of Iranian banks, or even in private businesses. It is thought that many Iranians who are employed in foreign educational organizations such as universities also may work for MOIS.” The joint Congressional-Pentagon report described how Iran’s intelligence and security agency operates “in all areas where Iran has interests, including…in the Americas” with the United States included in the regional reference.

Yet, the report submitted a few months later by the Department of State, pursuant to the Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act, did not take this into account or integrate into the assessment incidents directly related to the U.S. homeland or that involved Iran or Hezbollah—such as the plot to assassinate a foreign ambassador on U.S. soil and which had a Mexican connection.

Based on Capitol Hill testimony provided by U.S Government officials, as well as private experts from diverse backgrounds, it is easy to deduce who takes the matter seriously and who does not. However, the goal is not to place blame. The focus must be on putting in place an integrated strategy to address Iran-related and other hemispheric security challenges.

A holistic approach would have considered the role of illegal drug networks in facilitating terrorist financing activities in and through the region. Former DEA Chief of Operations Michael Braun testified before Congress that terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah “understand that the Mexican drug trafficking cartels now dominate” this illicit infrastructure in the United States. These terrorist groups, “most assuredly recognize the strategic value of exploiting that activity…for moving their vision forward in this part of the world.”

Drug trafficking routes are also being used by Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies to smuggle “contraband and people” into the U.S. In 2002, for example, Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, was arrested for smuggling hundreds of individuals into the United States, including Hezbollah and Hamas supporters. A footnote in Chapter 3 of the report by the 9/11 Commission staff confirms these ties, adding: “Boughader-Mucharrafille…relied on corrupt Mexican officials in Beirut, Mexico City and Tijuana to facilitate their travel. Specifically, Boughader obtained Mexican tourist visas from an official at the Mexican embassy in Beirut…” Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to provide material support and resources to Iranian-backed Hezbollah, crossed into the United States via the border with Mexico before proceeding to Michigan to carry out his mission for the terrorist group. According to the indictment, “Kourani’s activities within the U.S. were overseen by his brother…who, at all times relevant… was the Hizballah Chief of Military Security for Southern Lebanon.”

General John Kelly, who heads the U.S. Southern Command responsible for the Caribbean, Central and South America, recently confirmed that Hezbollah is already tapping into the “crime-terror convergence”.

The 2013 State Department report to Congress, however, treated Iran and Hezbollah as distinct or isolated from each other and de-linked their activities in Latin America and the Caribbean from those in the United States.

A year later, the administration has not reviewed its findings, as it promised Congress it would do. There are no indications U.S. intelligence agencies have been tasked with delving further into Iranian activities in the Hemisphere, nor that additional resources have been provided. The lack of cross-regional coordination or integration continues in large part. These deficiencies must be immediately addressed and developments in the Americas must be given a higher priority.

Integration and Prioritization

The Western Hemisphere should be factored into calculations of how to counter Iran globally and in more ways than applying limited, cosmetic sanctions on a handful of Tehran’s enablers. Information gleaned from Iranian regime operations in the Americas and those of its surrogates could not only help protect the U.S. homeland, but could generate information useful to other countries in the region and beyond. The full range of resources should also be made available to U.S. officials tasked with preventing the Americas from becoming a sanctuary, operational center or launching pad for Iran, its surrogates and other terrorists seeking to harm the United States, our interests or allies.

Distant history, as well as recent events with IS/ISIS/ISIL, has proven Machiavelli correct. Policy makers should heed his warning and not make the same mistakes with respect to Iranian activities in the Western Hemisphere. Hopefully, the soon-to-be-released report on this matter by the Government Accountability Office will help galvanize the Executive Branch and Congress into action.

Yleem D.S. Poblete, PhD is former Chief of Staff of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs. During her almost two decades of government service, she worked on the Committee’s investigative and legislative efforts concerning the AMIA attack, on post-9/11 legislation, and was responsible for several bills enacted into law pertaining to Iran.

Image: Iran president website