During Iran's negotiations: How Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

Niloufar

Football Legend
Oct 19, 2002
29,626
23
#1
This was an interesting story that came out last week. Its disgusting how Obama ignored Hezbollah's money-laundering investigation findings and CIA even planned for Hezbollah have a bigger role in Lebanon's politics.

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation

An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah's billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House's desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.
By Josh Meyer


[h=2]A global threat emerges[/h] [h=3]How Hezbollah turned to trafficking cocaine and laundering money through used cars to finance its expansion.[/h] In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.
They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.

[h=6]December 15, 2011[/h] [h=3]Hezbollah is linked to a $483,142,568 laundering scheme[/h] The money, allegedly laundered through the Lebanese Canadian Bank and two exchange houses, involved approximately 30 U.S. car buyers.

Read the document

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” said David AsherDavid AsherVeteran U.S. illicit finance expert sent from Pentagon to Project Cassandra to attack the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise., who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

The untold story of Project Cassandra illustrates the immense difficulty in mapping and countering illicit networks in an age where global terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime have merged, but also the extent to which competing agendas among government agencies — and shifting priorities at the highest levels — can set back years of progress.
And while the pursuit may be shadowed in secrecy, from Latin American luxury hotels to car parks in Africa to the banks and battlefields of the Middle East, the impact is not: In this case, multi-ton loads of cocaine entering the United States, and hundreds of millions of dollars going to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization with vast reach.
Obama had entered office in 2009 promising to improve relations with Iran as part of a broader rapprochement with the Muslim world. On the campaign trail, he had asserted repeatedly that the Bush administration’s policy of pressuring Iran to stop its illicit nuclear program wasn’t working, and that he would reach out to Tehran to reduce tensions.
The man who would become Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser and then CIA director, John BrennanJohn BrennanObama's White House counterterrorism adviser, who became CIA director in 2013., went further. He recommended in a policy paper that “the next president has the opportunity to set a new course for relations between the two countries” through not only a direct dialogue, but “greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system.”

Barack Obama

John Brennan

Former U.S. president

Former CIA director




By May 2010, Brennan, then assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, confirmed in a speech that the administration was looking for ways to build up “moderate elements” within Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a Washington conference, saying it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and, ultimately, a political party with representatives in the Lebanese Parliament and Cabinet, according to a Reuters report.
“There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing,” Brennan said. “And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”
In practice, the administration’s willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah in the Middle East, combined with its desire for a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program, translated into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others.
Lebanese arms dealer Ali FayadAli Fayad(aka Fayyad). Ukraine-based arms merchant suspected of being a Hezbollah operative moving large amounts of weapons to Syria. , a suspected top Hezbollah operative whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, was arrested in Prague in the spring of 2014. But for the nearly two years Fayad was in custody, top Obama administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech government to extradite him to the United States, even as Putin was lobbying aggressively against it.
Fayad, who had been indicted in U.S. courts on charges of planning the murders of U.S. government employees, attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to acquire, transfer and use anti-aircraft missiles, was ultimately sent to Beirut. He is now believed by U.S. officials to be back in business, and helping to arm militants in Syria and elsewhere with Russian heavy weapons.

[h=6]March 26, 2014[/h] [h=3]Indictment of Ali Fayad[/h] The indictment alleges Fayad, along with his co-conspirators, agreed to provide the FARC with weapons to kill U.S. and Colombian officials.

Read the document

Project Cassandra members say administration officials also blocked or undermined their efforts to go after other top Hezbollah operatives including one nicknamed the ‘GhostThe GhostOne of the most mysterious alleged associates of Safieddine, secretly indicted by the U.S., linked to multi-ton U.S.-bound cocaine loads and weapons shipments to Middle East.,” allowing them to remain active despite being under sealed U.S. indictment for years. People familiar with his case say the Ghost has been one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers, including to the U.S., as well as a major supplier of conventional and chemical weapons for use by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his people.
And when Project Cassandra agents and other investigators sought repeatedly to investigate and prosecute Abdallah SafieddineAbdallah SafieddineHezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran who allegedly oversaw the group's “Business Affairs Component” involved in international drug trafficking., Hezbollah’s longtime envoy to Iran, whom they considered the linchpin of Hezbollah’s criminal network, the Justice Department refused, according to four former officials with direct knowledge of the cases.
The administration also rejected repeated efforts by Project Cassandra members to charge Hezbollah’s military wing as an ongoing criminal enterprise under a federal Mafia-style racketeering statute, task force members say. And they allege that administration officials declined to designate Hezbollah a “significant transnational criminal organization” and blocked other strategic initiatives that would have given the task force additional legal tools, money and manpower to fight it.
Former Obama administration officials declined to comment on individual cases, but noted that the State Department condemned the Czech decision not to hand over Fayad. Several of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were guided by broader policy objectives, including de-escalating the conflict with Iran, curbing its nuclear weapons program and freeing at least four American prisoners held by Tehran, and that some law enforcement efforts were undoubtedly constrained by those concerns.
But the former officials denied that they derailed any actions against Hezbollah or its Iranian allies for political reasons.
“There has been a consistent pattern of actions taken against Hezbollah, both through tough sanctions and law enforcement actions before and after the Iran deal,” said Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesman who worked at both the White House and Justice Department in the administration.
Lewis, speaking for the Obama administration, provided a list of eight arrests and prosecutions as proof. He made special note of a February 2016 operation in which European authorities arrested an undisclosed number of alleged members of a special Hezbollah business affairs unit that the DEA says oversees its drug trafficking and other criminal money-making enterprises.

“They are a global threat, particularly if the Trump relationships turn sour” with Iran, Syria and Russia, said Magnus Ranstorp, one of the world’s foremost Hezbollah experts.
The June arrests “bring into sharp focus that the Iranians are making contingency plans for when the U.S. turns up the heat on Iran,” said Ranstorp, research director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College, who is in frequent contact with U.S. intelligence officials. “If they think it requires some military or terrorist response, they have been casing targets in the U.S. since the late 1990s.”
Ranstorp said U.S. intelligence officials believe that Hezbollah’s U.S.-based surveillance is far more extensive than has been publicly disclosed, and that they are particularly concerned about the battle-hardened operatives who have spent years on the ground in Syria.


“The U.S. intel community is very concerned about this,” Ranstorp said. Hezbollah’s agents “have become extremely sophisticated and good at fighting.”
MaltzDerek MaltzSenior DEA official who as head of Special Operations Division lobbied for support for Project Cassandra and its investigations., the longtime head of DEA Special Operations, who retired two months after the Tampa summit in 2014, has lobbied since then for better interagency cooperation on Hezbollah, to tackle both the terrorist threat and the criminal enterprise that underwrites it.
Turf battles, especially the institutional conflict between law enforcement and intelligence agencies, contributed to the demise of Project Cassandra, Maltz said. But many Project Cassandra agents insist the main reason was a political choice to prioritize the Iranian nuclear agreement over efforts to crack down on Hezbollah.
“They will believe until death that we were shut down because of the Iran deal,” Maltz said. “My gut feeling? My instinct as a guy doing this for 28 years is that it certainly contributed to why we got pushed aside and picked apart. There is no doubt in my mind.”
 

ChaharMahal

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
16,563
261
#2
This was an interesting story that came out last week. Its disgusting how Obama ignored Hezbollah's money-laundering investigation findings and CIA even planned for Hezbollah have a bigger role in Lebanon's politics.
Lebanon is comprised of majority Shite population at this point. it is not really up to U.S for Hezbollah to have or not to have role in that country. Hezbollah is the most important faction of power in Lebanon.


This is at best a sensational story. the u.s justice department is not simple organization that takes direct orders from white house.
There are clear documented cases of friction between justice department and white house during Reagan, Clinton, bush, OBama and even today with trump.
Some guy doing selective leaking story against others.

It is very possible that U.S could elect to defer applying pressure against a group in favor of achieving another deal. it all depends how you define national security interests of the United States.
 
Oct 1, 2004
8,122
205
#3
It's a hyped up story by a author looking for a "think tank" job and 2 sources who coincidentally work for pro Israeli think tanks.
 
May 21, 2003
19,849
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Not The Eshaalic Goozpublic !
#4
Lebanon is comprised of majority Shite population at this point. it is not really up to U.S for Hezbollah to have or not to have role in that country. Hezbollah is the most important faction of power in Lebanon.[\quote]

eyn e mosalmoon haa too yek sentence you contradicted yourself.

if you press a little beyond your sentence, how is hezbollah the 'most important faction of power' in that country ... by magic ? by faith ? by power of the 'force' (star wars) ... or the support of islamic republic of Iran and the inaction of assholes like obama ???



This is at best a sensational story. the u.s justice department is not simple organization that takes direct orders from white house.
There are clear documented cases of friction between justice department and white house during Reagan, Clinton, bush, OBama and even today with trump.
Some guy doing selective leaking story against others.

It is very possible that U.S could elect to defer applying pressure against a group in favor of achieving another deal. it all depends how you define national security interests of the United States.
This is not a story it is reality.

neither republicans nor democrats give a flying fuck on what happens in the middle east as long as they achieve their own goals.

difference between obama and the idiot trump is that obama by allowing pro paki and ksa groups to rise up against hezbollah and alavis kept a status quo.
before and during trump russians entered the league and managed by savage bombing to push US and pro US groups such as ISIS out of Syria and possibly lebanon and US's hands were completely cut off from there and the region is being shared between the jewish british akhounds and alavi russian assad
 
May 9, 2004
15,166
179
#6
امریکا چه در عهد بوش چه اوباما چه ترامپ فقط زورش به نوچه هاش و ضعفا میرسه
اگر جایی اوباما کوتاه امد بخاطر این بوده که دیده حریف نه نوچه اش بوده نه ضعیف
همینطور ترامپ
والا اوباما چکار میتونست بکنه در مورد حزب الله؟
جواب هچ
مخصوصا با وجود اسرائیل در یک قدمی حزب الله و داشتن بیش از صد هزار موشک در مخازن حزب الله
همین اوباما در سوریه سعی کرد بشار اسد رو به هرشکلی شده از بین ببره تا انکه اخر کار امریکا اقرار کرد که بشار جزوی از سوریه اینده خواهد بود
یا مثلا ترامپ چکار در مقابل کره شمالی کرده بجز تحریمهای اقتصادی
مگر کره از خط سرخ امریکا بارها عبور نکرد و موشک از بالای ژاپن نفرستاد ژاپنی که یکی از بزرکترین متحدین امریکاست؟
مگر ترامپ نگفت اگر دوباره ازمایش موشکی انجام دهد کره شمالی را با خاک یکسان میکنیم
دوهفته بعد کره شمالی بزرکترین ازمایش هسته ای در تاریخش را انجام داد و به ترامپ گفت بیلاخ
و بعد از خط و نشانهای ترامپ دها بار ازمایش موشکی انجام نداد
ترامپ چکار کرد ؟
هیچ عربستان را وادار کرد که قطر را زیر فشار قرار دهد تا امریکا بتواند از قطر چند ملیارد تلکه کند !!!ا
توی لیبی همین ها وقتی دیدند قذافی از هیچ طرفی پشتیبانی نمیشود اروپا دخالت مستقیم کرد
و در عرض چند هفته او را از بین بردند و شهر سرت را با خاک یکسان کردند
همین سناریو را هم برای بشار و سوریه تهیه کرده بودند که حزب الله و ایران و بعد روسیه دخالت کردند
امریکا اگر میتوانست پوئن حزب الله را در مورد جریان اتمی ایران و مباحثات 5 و 1 را از ایران بگیرد هیچ تردیدی نمیکرد
بلکه شاید حاضر بود پوئن های بیشتری بخاطر دادن این پوئن از طرف ایران بدهد
زیرا از یکطرف سوریه تضعیف میشد و بشار سقوط میکرد از طرف دیگر این خنجز از زیر گردن اسرائیل برداشته میشد
اوباما خوب میدانست که موضع حزب الله نمی تواند جایی در بحث و معامله جریان اتمی داشته باشد

 
May 21, 2003
19,849
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Not The Eshaalic Goozpublic !
#7
khanjar hamin alaan ham az zir e gardan e esrael bardashte shod.

har gohi deleshoon mikhad mikhoran iran, russia o assad o inaa ham hich ghalat nemikonan.
vali khob agar syria miyoftaad dast e isis (saudi) khob kheyli bara israel behtar mishod.

oon jasho bahat movafegham.

oon vaght israel miyoftaad be fekre zamin haaye tooye syria o iraq.

too ketaab e kirishoon neveshte ke az dejle o foraat ta jerusalem maale joohoodast.

mese een khomeyni e kos kesh migoft ke taa ghods bayd berim.

ham een mosalmoona ham joohooda hamshoon jakesh adam koshan.
 
May 9, 2004
15,166
179
#8
khanjar hamin alaan ham az zir e gardan e esrael bardashte shod.

har gohi deleshoon mikhad mikhoran iran, russia o assad o inaa ham hich ghalat nemikonan.
vali khob agar syria miyoftaad dast e isis (saudi) khob kheyli bara israel behtar mishod.

oon jasho bahat movafegham.

oon vaght israel miyoftaad be fekre zamin haaye tooye syria o iraq.

too ketaab e kirishoon neveshte ke az dejle o foraat ta jerusalem maale joohoodast.

mese een khomeyni e kos kesh migoft ke taa ghods bayd berim.

ham een mosalmoona ham joohooda hamshoon jakesh adam koshan.
نه جانم
موضوع حزب الله و اسرائیل ربطی به اوضاع سیاسی اسرائیل در جهان ندارد
این خنجری که می گویم همان تهدیدات حزب الله است که اسرائیل در موردش حداقل در منطقه حزب الله یعنی لبنان نمی تواند کاری انجام دهد
یک شراره بین اسرائیل و حزب الله ممکن است که برای هر دو طرف مخصوصا اسرائیل بسیار گران تمام شد
حزب الله الان می تواند مخازن شیمیایی لبنان را در حیفا از بین ببرد
همچنین می تواند موشک های حزب برای نیروگاه اتمی دیمونا خطرناک و بسیار خطرناک باشد
چنانکه تهدید به حمله به الجلیل و شهرک های مرزی اسرائیل از همه وقت بیشتر واقعی به نظر می رسد
این خنجری است که گفتم
والا اوضاع سیاسی اسرائیل اگر بهتر از هر وقتی نباشد بدتر نیست و اسرائیل نسبت به قبل در وضع سیاسی بسیار خوبی قرار دارد

 
May 21, 2003
19,849
147
Not The Eshaalic Goozpublic !
#9
khande daareh hamoon jomleye avalet ...

kheyli khande daareh.


ta vaghti ke gooroohak haayee mese hezbollah israel ro tahdid mikonan, oona az hame jaa baaj migiran.

moslamoon haye bi hame chiz too arabestan o emaarat o bi gheyrat tarin hashoon yani kuwait ke hame khafe khoon e marg migiran. faghat hezbollah o hamas hastan ke gaahi oghaat mooye damaghe joohooda mishan.

jang kardan dah saal pish mige rabti be ozaaye israel nadareh...

mozhek bood harfet
 
May 9, 2004
15,166
179
#10
khande daareh hamoon jomleye avalet ...

kheyli khande daareh.


ta vaghti ke gooroohak haayee mese hezbollah israel ro tahdid mikonan, oona az hame jaa baaj migiran.

moslamoon haye bi hame chiz too arabestan o emaarat o bi gheyrat tarin hashoon yani kuwait ke hame khafe khoon e marg migiran. faghat hezbollah o hamas hastan ke gaahi oghaat mooye damaghe joohooda mishan.

jang kardan dah saal pish mige rabti be ozaaye israel nadareh...

mozhek bood harfet
کجاش خنده داره ؟
شاید شما متوجه نشدی
وقتی که اوضاع سیاسی یک کشور مستقر باشه ربط به تهدید ها از طرف یک گروه نداره همینطور برعکس
ممکنه یک کشور از نظر اوضاع سیاسی جهانی در ذیل جدول قرار گرفته باشه ولی اصلا هیچ تهدید نظامی متوجه ان کشور نباشد
بعدا همه چیز را به این ساده گی بررسی کردن فقط ساده لوحی است
مثلا میگی حزب الله به نفع اسرائیله چون اسرائل میتونه باج بگیره
در صورتی که اگر تهدیدات نظامی حزب علیه اسرائیل نبود اوضاع اقتصادی اسرائیل بمراتب بهتر بود
یعنی چی ؟ کجا گفتم جنگ کردن ده سال پیش ربطی به اوضاع اسرائیل نداره ؟!!!ا
همچنین شما اوضاع سیاسی و نظامی رو با هم قاطی کردی جانم
مثلا یک کشوری مثل عراق در زمان جنگ ایران و عراق زمان صدام اوضاع سیاسی مستقری داشت که شاید
از زمان ملک فیصل پادشاه عراق به این طرف چنین اوضاع سیاسی مستقری در عراق حاکم نبوده
در حالی که در حال جنگ بزرگی با یک کشور همسایه اش بود
ولی همین کشور بعد از صلح با ایران و بعد با امریکا از سال 1992 تا قبل از سقوط صدام از اوضاع سیاسی بسیار بدی برخوردار بود
هیچ جنگ و تهدید نظامی هم تا قبل از سال 2001 او را تهدید نمیکرد
اینجا می بینیم اوضاع سیاسی و تهدید نظامی یا جنگ می تواند دو فاز کاملا متفاوت باشد
ولی همانطور که گفتم شما این مطلب را متوجه نشدید و قاطی کرده اید
به همین خاطر گفته بنده را خنده دار میدانید
 

masoudA

Legionnaire
Oct 16, 2008
6,199
22
#13
Good to see this post - some of us got harassed and banned here on ISP for attacking Obama several years ago.
We do not know half of the truth about Obama yet....
 

Niloufar

Football Legend
Oct 19, 2002
29,626
23
#14
Too long to read Nilou jan , I make it even simpler,

but before that, weren't you one of his supporters ?

anyways this what was all about

Iran : We remain in Syria
Obama : Then stop Nuclear program .

Deal ? Deal .
hehe good point about that deal! Seems like it.

Yes I still think he was one of the best presidents in U.S but for Americans. I did criticize him for his foreign policies. But as you know, most of the time people judge Presidents based on what he did for their own country than what he did in Middle East. Hey, a lot of Americans dont even know where Iran is located!!