Drone assembly in Argentina, cybersecurity hubs in Chile, and light-weapons manufacturing in Paraguay could yield cutting-edge parallel supply chains.By Jose Lev Alvarez, Middle East ForumIn the 1970s and 1980s, American human rights restrictions on military aid created an opening that Israel filled with arms, training, and intelligence expertise for Latin American military governments.Mossad operatives played a central role in establishing these intelligence networks. Israeli experts trained roughly 1,000 Guatemalan soldiers in 1979 alone.The Israeli firm Tadiran designed, financed, and staffed the Guatemalan Army’s School of Transmissions and Electronics, which opened in November 1981 and taught electronic codification, radio jamming, and ciphering.In 1982, up to 300 Israeli advisers operated in Guatemala, training the local military intelligence unit and the elite Kaibiles special forces.Israeli technicians installed a computer center in Guatemala City that became the armed forces’ “nerve center” for tracking rebel movements.These tools helped dismantle urban guerrilla networks during the civil war that claimed more than 200,000 lives.In Chile, Mossad officers trained agents in external operations. After the 1976 U.S. embargo on Augusto Pinochet’s regime, Israel became Chile’s primary arms supplier.El Salvador obtained 80 percent of its military imports from the Jewish State during peak periods. Similar patterns emerged in Honduras and Colombia, where Israel supplied roughly 40 percent of weapons purchases in key years.In the Caribbean, the Israeli security establishment is now helping to secure the Dominican-Haitian border against illegal migration, trafficking, and cross-border smuggling.Jerusalem extended support across much of Central and South America. At the height of the Cold War, Latin America absorbed a substantial share of Israeli arms exports.Those networks now provide a battle-tested operational template.In January 2026, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assumed the interim presidency, the U.S. lifted sanctions, and Iran’s alliance with Caracas collapsed.In April 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Argentina’s President Javier Milei formalized the Isaac Accords in Jerusalem, modeled on the Abraham Accords.The pact targets Iranian influence, terrorism, and drug trafficking while expanding security and technology cooperation.Argentina, still scarred by the 1994 Iran-sponsored Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina bombing that killed 85 people, offers a natural platform for expansion.Mossad’s decades of experience tracking Iranian and Hezbollah networks in the tri-border area position it to lead joint fusion centers.Israel’s advisory record from the 1970s and 1980s supplies a template for dismantling remaining Iranian and Hezbollah networks.Proven liaison methods and surveillance techniques can map narco-terror finance in the tri-border region where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet and residual cells in post-Maduro Venezuela.Joint fusion centers under the Isaac Accords can institutionalize that cooperation. Latin American partners gain access to expertise free from the legacies of great-power intervention or Chinese debt-trap diplomacy.The strategic payoff extends to critical resources amid intensifying great-power rivalry.The Lithium Triangle holds the world’s largest concentration of lithium, essential for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage.Chile possesses 9.3 million tons of reserves, while Argentina holds 4 million tons. Israel lacks domestic sources and faces vulnerability in a market where China dominates processing.Partnerships under the Isaac Accords can secure diversified supply chains through joint ventures in extraction, desalination-powered processing, and artificial intelligence (AI)-optimized operations.Argentina’s mining reforms create immediate entry points. Israel offers unique advantages: world-leading desalination technology, battle-tested drone and AI surveillance systems, and decades of experience in arid-climate extraction.These arrangements deny Tehran and Beijing leverage while giving the State of Israel strategic depth.Military-industrial autonomy completes the strategy. Between 2019 and 2023, the United States supplied 69 percent of Israel’s major arms imports; Germany provided 30 percent.Latin America offers co-production sanctuaries insulated from external political pressure. Drone assembly in Argentina, cybersecurity hubs in Chile, and light-weapons manufacturing in Paraguay could yield cutting-edge parallel supply chains.Israel’s defense exports hit a record $14.8 billion in 2024. The Isaac Accords revive those Cold War channels through overt, rules-based frameworks.With Maduro gone and Iranian networks in retreat, Israel should re-establish diplomatic relations with Caracas and launch a “Venezuela-Israel Strategic Reconstruction Partnership” under the Isaac Accords.The initiative would not only expand this strategic diplomatic initiative but also rest on three pillars: co-production of drones and surveillance systems to replace Iranian manufacturing and secure borders; cybersecurity hubs to protect new democratic institutions from Iranian retaliation; and a Mossad-led fusion center in Caracas to dismantle residual Hezbollah cells while training Venezuelan forces in Israeli doctrine.For the United States to support this partnership, its backing must remain conditional on three non-negotiable requirements: the complete and permanent expulsion of all Iranian and Hezbollah personnel; Venezuela’s full reintegration into the Organization of American States; and verifiable anti-corruption benchmarks explicitly tied to phased sanctions relief.This framework would deliver democratization while producing strategic gains for Jerusalem.This opens the door to a new and expanding market for its defense exports, privileged access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and mineral wealth, where 12 percent of the country hosts eight of the ten most commercially demanded minerals, permanent denial of any Iranian comeback platform, and a forward operating base in a major energy powerhouse.Israel’s Latin American intelligence legacy was forged through Cold War necessity. Today, that same expertise positions Jerusalem to anchor a resource-secure, militarily self-reliant presence in the Western Hemisphere.The Isaac Accords supply the vehicle. The Lithium Triangle and Venezuelan reconstruction supply the cargo.The door stands wide open. After the upcoming elections in Israel, the new administration should consider establishing a dedicated Latin America task force and launching pilot projects in Argentina and Venezuela before the year’s end.The post How Israel can crush Iran in the Western hemisphere appeared first on World Israel News.