SFS TeamThrough proxy networks, criminal convergence, and strategic alliances with authoritarian regimes, Tehran builds a Western platform for destabilization.
Iran’s presence in Latin America is neither peripheral nor episodic. It is the result of decades of strategic planning aimed at challenging US influence in its own hemisphere. Since the 1980s, and especially during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran has methodically cultivated ideological, secret diplomatic and criminal alliances throughout the region. At the center of this projection is Hezbollah, Iran’s most lethal and flexible proxy, which has fused political indoctrination with illicit finance and paramilitary operations to create a resilient and multifaceted presence in Latin America.
The partnership with populist and authoritarian regimes – notably Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba – provides Iran not only with the capacity for diplomatic and institutional action, but also with platforms for asymmetric warfare and a logistical infrastructure capable of supporting covert actions in the Americas. The escalation of the conflict in the Middle East raises alarm bells in the Western Hemisphere, where Iran has its greatest enemy, the United States, and unequivocally its largest and most capillary network abroad, which is Latin America.
The precise military action ordered by President Donald Trump, which resulted in the destruction of Iran’s primary nuclear sites, should not be interpreted as the United States “provoking” a war. Rather, it as a deterrence measure aimed at leveraging a peaceful solution to deter Iran’s aggressions against America and its allies. The measured, precise, and calibrated strike on Iran’s nuclear sites is an example of President Trump’s peace through strength doctrine.
The Iranian regime, for its part, now faces an existential dilemma. Any direct or indirect retaliation against the United States should be considered an act of self-destruction. President Trump does not want war and the Iranian regime, if it wants to survive, must not drag the United States into a war. What can we expect from Iran? Ideally, Iran’s leadership initiates a dialogue with the U.S. to find a path to peace. Most likely, however, the Iranian regime might resort to the tactic it has mastered since the dawn of its revolution: asymmetric warfare through proxies such as Hezbollah, its network of militias in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Africa, and also in the Western Hemisphere.
Latin America precisely exemplifies the attack options Iran has, beyond of a conventional war.
1. Terrorist attacks against Jewish/Israeli and American targets.
2. Disinformation campaigns to generate instability in the region. Immigration could be one of them.
3. Create a humanitarian crisis on the southern border, such as a migrant caravan.
4. Ignite a regional conflict.
Venezuela remains the cornerstone of Tehran’s hemispheric strategy. The Tehran-Caracas axis gives Iran a state-sponsored sanctuary only three hours’ flying time from United States. This alliance has built the way for military cooperation, the evasion of sanctions and the infiltration of Iranian and Hezbollah agents under state cover. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) engineers advise Venezuela’s oil facilities and air-defense network, while near-weekly Mahan Air/Conviasa rotations move technicians, cash, and sanctioned materiel through a customs-free hangar at Simón Bolívar International Airport. The arrangement underwrites sanctions evasion and lets Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies circulate across Latin America under diplomatic cover. Venezuela’s porous borders and corrupt bureaucracy have allowed Hezbollah operatives to obtain documentation and safe haven, especially on Margarita Island, which has served as a logistical and financial node.
Iranian-made drones are reportedly being produced in Venezuela, and Iranian-designed fast-attack naval vessels have also appeared, signaling an alarming projection of Iranian military capacity in the region. Caracas began with the “Arpía-001” surveillance UAV in early 2012 and quickly graduated, with Iranian help, to the EANSA assembly line beside El Libertador Air Base. Imagery and leaked purchase orders indicate a yearly output of approximately 50 Mohajer-2 derivatives (ANSU-100) and sub-kits for the stealthier Shahed-171 clone (ANSU-200). Venezuelan white papers list three operational ANSU-100 squadrons—each able to range ≈150 km, placing Guyana’s offshore Stabroek Block and the sea-lanes toward Puerto Rico within strike distance. Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz warned in 2022 that Iran had already shipped precision-guided munitions for these airframes, calling them “armed drones on America’s doorstep.”
Tehran has also delivered at least a dozen Peykaap-III fast-attack craft—re-badged locally as Zolfaghar. Each 17-metre hull can sprint at 55 knots and carries twin launch tubes for the Nasr-1/CM-90 anti-ship cruise missile (90 km range). Open-source imagery shows two batches—one in 2023, another in late-2024—augmenting earlier Peykaap-II transfers. Iran’s doctrine of “wolf-pack” swarms designed to overwhelm blue-water navies now shapes Venezuelan drills in the Gulf of Paria and off the disputed Essequibo coast.
IRGC advisers openly speak of building “Houthis of the Caribbean”: small, missile-armed boats, mines, and kamikaze drones that can deny the U.S. or allied fleets unchallenged access to the southern Atlantic. The boats’ shallow draft lets them prowl both riverine and coastal zones; Venezuelan commanders have already paired them with Iranian-origin loitering munitions for saturation-strike exercises.
The emergence of chavismo has given the Iranian regime an opportunity to grow its malign influence in the region exponentially. Before Hugo Chávez – who presided over Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013 – Iranian networks were strictly clandestine, restricted to Islamic Centers and Hezbollah cells involved in recruitment, financial crimes and conscription, above all in the Triple Frontier (Argentina, Brazil Paraguay) and in mirrored Shiite communities scattered throughout the region.
The intensification of relations with Venezuela and other self-styled Bolivarian countries has allowed Iran and its proxies to greatly expand their influence beyond the clandestinity. The financial apparatus of Hezbollah terrorism, which was limited to the Triple Border Area (TBA) – where the Barakat network in particular laundered tens of millions of dollars through schemes based on trade and casinos – has adapted and reached other regions: such as the Iquique Free Zone in Chile, Margarita in Venezuela and Colón in Panama.
Iran’s long-term influence campaign mixes religion and subversion. Through Qom-based institutions such as Al-Mustafa University and Islam Oriente, Iran trains Latin American converts in Shiite theology steeped in revolutionary ideology. Clerics like Suhail Assad and Abdul Karim Paz, both born in Argentina and trained by Mohsen Rabbani, pioneer of Iran’s encroachment to Spanish-speaking countries. Their centers operate as instruments of soft power, but also serve to recruit, radicalize, and provide logistical support for more covert missions. Currently, Mohsen Rabbani’s son-in-law, Sheij Ali Qomi, is leading the recruitment network that uses religion as cover.
The 1992 and 1994 bombings and the 2015 assassination of prosecutor Alberto Nisman in Buenos Aires are milestones in Iran’s violent action in Latin America, through its proxies and political-diplomatic cover. Although no similar events with mass casualties have occurred since then, several plans have been disrupted in recent years. In 2023, Brazil’s “Operation Trapiche” exposed a Hezbollah cell planning attacks against Jewish sites in São Paulo, with agents trained in Lebanon and employing local criminals for plausible deniability. The following year, Peruvian authorities arrested an Iranian Quds Force officer, Majid Azizi, for planning assassinations of Israeli citizens during a summit in Lima.
Hezbollah’s convergence with Latin American organized crime further increases the threat. Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua transnational crime organization has operated in conjunction with Iran, through Hezbollah in gold smuggling, human trafficking, and territorial control. This nexus between crime and terrorism provides Hezbollah with access to logistical networks that reach the US border. Human smuggling pipelines now transport not only migrants, but also terrorists. US Customs and Border Protection reports have recorded arrests of individuals with links to Hezbollah trying to cross the southern border.
Ideologically, Iran’s narrative resonates with segments of the radical left in Latin America and Indigenous resistance movements. By portraying the Islamic Revolution as parallel to Latin America’s anti-imperialist struggles, Iran inserts itself into local discourses of resistance. Nicaragua and Cuba act as ideological amplifiers, offering diplomatic platforms and propaganda infrastructure such as HispanTV and TeleSUR.
This influence campaign creates an environment in which Iranian activity is normalized, even romanticized, among sectors of academia, activism, and the local media, reinforcing anti-Israel and anti-United States sentiment. Meanwhile, Iranian and Hezbollah actors exploit local freedoms – such as religious freedom and press autonomy – to mask subversive activities under legitimate cultural or educational initiatives.
The final step in Iran’s strategic penetration of Latin America is military. Bolivia has emerged as Iran’s secondary strategic ally. Since 2023, a defense cooperation pact has formalized the presence of Iranian drones and trainers on Bolivian soil. Ostensibly justified as part of counter-narcotics support, these deployments are widely interpreted as a covert intelligence foothold. Bolivian passports are reportedly being issued to Middle Eastern operatives, and intelligence services from Argentina and Chile have raised alarms about Iranian-linked individuals transiting through Bolivia into other South American countries. Beyond hardware, Tehran’s cultural and ideological influence is spreading through clerical networks and religious centers in La Paz and Santa Cruz. With lithium and uranium resources in the highlands, Iran’s interest in Bolivia is both ideological and economic.
These Iranian military objectives found a perfect environment to grow in Venezuela. Its presence and influence in the regime of Nicolas Maduro has been rehearsing a war with Guyana for years. If Iran, in association with Maduro, detonates a conflict in the region, it will have a direct impact on the United States and the region. In addition to the humanitarian crisis (which would lead to a new wave of immigration), the proximity of the Panama Canal has the potential to disrupt the global logistics chain, with a major impact on the United States. Around 40% of container traffic leaving or destined for the United States passes through the canal.
President Trump’s declared cessation of hostilities should be regarded as a significant accomplishment, as it has the potential to prevent the loss of life among Israelis and Iranians, thereby averting a crisis with the capacity to exert deleterious economic and humanitarian influences that extend beyond the Middle Eastern context.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published a statement on X, asserting, “Those who know the Iranian people and their history know that the Iranian nation isn’t a nation that surrenders.” This is clearly a political rhetorical tool used by a leader who realizes he cannot extend the war by conventional means against a stronger regional enemy. As if its current disadvantage were not enough, a weakened Iran lacks the capacity to retaliate against a one-time intervention by the United States.
It’s important to note that the Iranian regime has no choice but to use its various instruments of dissuasion to seek revenge and inflict damage on Israel and, above all, the United States. Latin America is, however, a potential battleground for the Ayatollah regime to use to attack the United States, exporting the conflict to the Western Hemisphere, without assuming a direct war by transferring to Venezuela, its satellite in the region, the responsibility for a war in theory unrelated to the conflict in the Middle East, but with great potential to affect the United States.
