The Middle Eastern Origin of the Venezuela Crisis

About the Lecture: The Maduro regime in Venezuela is sustained through a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, sophisticated matrix of foreign and domestic actors that includes armed groups in Venezuela and transnational criminal and foreign terrorist organizations. While most attention is paid to Cuba, China, and Russia’s role in Venezuela, the regime has increasingly relied on an array of Middle Eastern actors, namely Hezbollah and Iran, to project their revolutionary goals regionwide. Joseph Humire, a former Marine and Iraq war veteran, will present the findings of more than three years of ongoing research that includes many trips to South America to collect firsthand information from those with intimate knowledge of the threat. He has repeatedly briefed these findings on the historic and immigration ties between Venezuela and the Middle East to the Defense Ministries of Brazil, Colombia, as well as various entities within the US Department of Defense, namely Special Operations Command. About the Speaker: Joseph M. Humire is a global security expert, specializing in trans-regional threats in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Humire provides regular briefings and lectures on international terrorism, transnational organized crime, Islamism and Iran and Hezbollah’s influence in the Americas to various entities within the U.S. national security community, as well as prominent think tanks and universities worldwide. He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress as well as the European and Canadian Parliament. Mr. Humire has also served as an expert witness to several important terrorism trials in South America, including an ongoing trial of an accused Hezbollah operative in Peru. Mr. Humire is a regular national security commentator for a variety of major English and Spanish language media, including Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español, and NTN24 regional news network, as well as Fox News and CNN International. He has published in both languages for various newspapers and academic journals across the Americas and released his first book in 2014 titled Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America, published by Lexington Books. More recently, he wrote the foreword for a new book by Dr. Max G. Manwaring, titled Confronting the Evolving Global Security Landscape published by Praeger Security International. Mr. Humire currently serves as the executive director of the next generation, national security think tank—Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS)—based in Washington D.C. and is a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Middle East Forum. Prior to SFS, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps with a combat tour in Iraq and a multinational training exercise UNITAS in Latin America and the Caribbean. After leaving the military, he graduated from George Mason University with a degree in Economics and Global Affairs. Mr. Humire began building SFS’s global network of more than 100 security scholars in almost 30 countries worldwide as the Director of Institute Relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Mr. Humire’s unique blend of military experience, economics education, and expertise in asymmetric warfare, offers a new perspective to U.S. foreign policy and national security.