Venezuela: narco-state meets Iran-backed terror

As if the political and economic chaos wracking Venezuela wasn’t worrying enough, a couple of recent stories underscore the potential national security threat brewing there. First, last February’s designation of Venezuela’s vice president, Tareck El Aissami, as a drug kingpin by the U.S. Department of Treasury. Second, a CNN investigative report revealing that Venezuela’s embassy in Iraq was allegedly selling Venezuelan passports and identity documents to Middle Eastern nationals. The CNN report doubled down on revelations that the Venezuelan embassy in Syria had engaged in similar activities in 2013, when a key Hezbollah liaison in Venezuela, the Treasury-sanctioned and FBI-wanted Ghazi Atef Nassereddine, was the deputy ambassador in Damascus. If true, such reckless action would almost certainly facilitate the entry of Islamist militants to Latin America. Put all this together and what do you get? A rabidly anti-American failed state that is aggressively incubating the convergence of narco-trafficking and jihadism in America’s own backyard.