Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro was part of a loose anti-American bloc including Russia, China and Cuba. But Venezuela had other sponsors, perhaps surprising to see in South America: Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. Despite being far from the Muslim world, socialist Venezuela became an important part of Iran’s proxy empire. Removing Maduro from power cuts Middle Eastern terrorism off from a vital lifeline.

Iran in Venezuela

Iran and Venezuela are both isolated pariah states looking to undermine the United States. Their shared interests have led to a marriage of convenience. They are both major oil exporters. They use each other’s oil infrastructure to circumvent U.S. sanctions. They stand up for each other in international forums.

It’s hard to calculate the exact trade volume between Iran and Venezuela. They engage in little official goods-for-currency trade because of sanctions. Instead, they often barter with oil as a “currency.” Reports cited by Calcalist Tech claim Iran sent Venezuela under 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2023. “[A] ceiling of 100,000 barrels per day, around 36.5 million barrels annually, at prices of $60 to $80 per barrel translates into a notional value of up to $3 billion per year.”

It wasn’t only oil. Venezuela was also a major market for Iranian military technology such as attack boats and anti-ship missiles. Iran has allowed Venezuela to construct versions of its famous Mohajer and Shahed drones.

But far more consequential was how Iran used Venezuela through its Lebanese terrorist proxy, Hezbollah.

Hezbollah in Venezuela

Venezuela has let Hezbollah use its territory for training centers. One of the main centers is Margarita Island in the Caribbean Sea. According to former U.S. Department of Defense official Stephen Bryen, Hezbollah set up Venezuela’s infrastructure to manufacture Iranian drones. Venezuela even gave Hezbollah its own compound on Margarita Island in the Caribbean. There Hezbollah had a forging facility to produce fake identity documents, equipping its agents to travel throughout Latin America. It also had a paramilitary training center on the island. Anecdotal reports suggest Hezbollah had similar camps on the Venezuelan mainland.

Bryen called Margarita Island “Hezbollah’s most critical operational base in the Western Hemisphere.”

Hezbollah also has connections through Venezuela’s large Lebanese expatriate community. Some figures from families alleged to have Hezbollah connections even hold formal office. For example, Ghazi Nassereddine of the prominent Nassereddine clan became a diplomat to Syria while his family owned significant property in Margarita Island. Ghazi was reportedly one of the main contacts between Venezuela and Hezbollah. Another Venezuelan with close alleged links to Hezbollah, Tareck El Aissami, became Maduro’s minister of industry and national production.

Hezbollah’s largest influence in Venezuela is its participation in the drug trade. In 2016, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency estimated Hezbollah gained as much as $400 million a year just from selling cocaine from Latin America. In 2018, the U.S. Justice Department named Hezbollah one of the top five transnational criminal organizations, alongside El Salvador’s MS13 and three Mexican cartels.

Alex Saab, another Lebanese-Venezuelan with alleged ties to Hezbollah, is Venezuela’s current minister of industry and national production. In 2019, the U.S. accused Saab of laundering $350 million out of Venezuela through the U.S. to overseas accounts. He was imprisoned by the U.S. in 2021 and released by President Joe Biden in a 2023 prisoner swap.

Unlike other drug groups, Hezbollah’s main goal is not to make money, but to fund terrorist attacks. Much of their money made comes back to the Middle East to fund wars against Israel.

The U.S. has a record of capturing at least one Hezbollah operative attempting to enter the country illegally through the southern border. In 2024, Homeland Security captured Lebanese citizen Basel Ebbadi near El Paso. Ebbadi admitted he was planning to go to New York and “make a bomb.”

Saving America and Israel From Islamic Terrorism

Since the strikes that led to Maduro’s capture, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has given media interviews where, among Venezuela’s other partners, he repeatedly singled out Iran and Hezbollah as bad actors. In an interview with cbs’s Face the Nation, he mentioned Iran and Hezbollah’s presence three times as among the reasons the U.S. attacked.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has prioritized countering Iran. He bombed Iran’s nuclear sites with Israel in June. He has empowered Iranian adversaries like Saudi Arabia. All the while, Iran is in an economic crisis that is generating the country’s largest social unrest in years.

Iran cannot afford to lose Venezuela. But it can’t really do anything to stop the U.S. Its resources are stretched thin, and it has more immediate problems at home to worry about. Hezbollah has even fewer options.

Removing Maduro is not the same as undoing all of Iran and Hezbollah’s work in Venezuela. But it’s a necessary first step. It probably won’t take long for the rest of the dominoes to fall. They would fall at the worst possible time for Iran. This move will weaken the Middle East’s most organized terrorist groups. It will hamper their attempts to sneak across the southern border. In short, it could make America, the Middle East and the world a safer place.

The Trumpet examines world events through the lens of Bible prophecy, much of which is directed to the nation of Israel. As late theologian Herbert W. Armstrong proved in his landmark book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, the U.S. is descended from ancient Israel. It became the world’s biggest superpower because of a promise God made to ancient Israel’s ancestor, the patriarch Abraham.

God also promised ancient Israel severe curses for disobeying His law (see Leviticus 26). Many of America’s problems are a direct result of it forsaking God. Ancient Israel experienced similar curses. But 2 Kings 14 records a moment when God gave Israel a respite from curses, not because of Israel’s repentance but because of His mercy: “For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash” (verses 26-27).

“The Bible shows that, anciently, God raised up the kingdom of Israel to represent Him,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in America Under Attack. “Satan attacked that nation in every way he could. History shows that at one point in the ninth century b.c., an enemy almost completely destroyed it—but God intervened. How? He raised up a human king to temporarily save the nation.”

As America Under Attack elaborates, this history is prophetic. Mr. Flurry attributes the bitter affliction to the destructive policies of the recent Democratic administrations. God said He would relieve some of America’s bitter affliction through a strong leader: President Donald Trump.

Much of this affliction was also directed at the State of Israel in the Middle East. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden empowered Israeli adversaries like Iran and Hezbollah. Iran’s progress in its nuclear program and Hamas’s October 7 massacre are results of this.

“From the time of Joe Biden’s inauguration,” Mr. Flurry continues, “I predicted that we would have more Palestinian terrorist attacks because of the change in leadership. That is exactly what began to happen. Anybody should be able to recognize why!”

2 Kings 14:28 continues: “Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”

Mr. Flurry writes that “the indication is that Jeroboam reclaimed something to help Judah,” or the Jewish state today. He concludes: “It appears Mr. Trump may have to recover some of Judah’s freedom ….”

In other words, the modern Jeroboam will likely help Israel with its security situation. The exact details aren’t immediately apparent. But cutting off Iran from an important ally and Hezbollah from its New World cash cow helps Israel in extremely significant ways. It is at least a positive step in the right direction.

To learn more, request a free copy of America Under Attack.