Contributor
Tehran warily watches events in the Caribbean as its ally Venezuela faces the largest US military deployment in the region in decades, which US officials describe as a bid to confront narco-terrorism
The United States has accused figures close to Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of involvement in trafficking into the US.
Uncertainty spiked over the weekend after President Donald Trump declared Venezuela’s surrounding airspace “closed in its entirety,” though he later cautioned reporters not to “read anything into it” regarding immediate military action.
For Tehran, Venezuela is not just an ally but a principal hemispheric partner.
Over two decades, this “Axis of Necessity” has evolved into a channel through which each side supplies what the other lacks: technology, crude oil and refined fuel, political backing abroad and trade routes safe from sanctions.
Logistical artery
The partnership now functions as a dual-use logistical route linking Tehran and Caracas.
When Venezuela’s refineries faltered, Iran sent technical teams and arranged barter-based energy swaps; when Tehran needed additional outlets for crude, Venezuelan shipments helped maintain cash flow and reservoir management.
Western sanctions authorities say financial intermediaries on both sides have facilitated transactions designed to bypass traditional banking scrutiny.
Gold-for-fuel exchanges emerged as a way to secure hard assets where access to formal channels was limited. Cooperation has also extended into areas with potential military relevance.
Iran International reporting—based on internal documents and informed sources—indicated Iranian involvement in aspects of drone development inside Venezuela.
These arrangements provided Iran a degree of strategic depth: a distant space where technology, training and covert finance could operate with reduced visibility.
That space is now tightening. With carriers, bombers and surveillance platforms operating near Venezuelan shores, the risk of disruption to sensitive shipments has grown.
The Hezbollah factor
Iran’s regional strategy depends heavily on non-state partners, especially Hezbollah.
Tehran’s adversaries accuse the group of fundraising in South America through smuggling routes, financial intermediaries and more recently, digital-currency channels.
Hezbollah is now confronting one of its most serious setbacks in years; the killing of senior commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai in November 2025 was the latest blow.
As the group absorbs battlefield losses and financial strain, its reliance on overseas networks becomes more consequential.
Analysts of proxy finance argue that the Western Hemisphere offers strategic redundancy: if Middle-Eastern channels are disrupted, South American ones can help sustain the organization.
But those networks are themselves under renewed pressure.
Expanded US deployments near Venezuela increase exposure for facilitators who once operated with relative obscurity.
What was envisioned as a fallback corridor is now monitored by carrier strike groups, sanctions investigators and intelligence-sharing partners.
Legal reckoning?
If the Caribbean illustrates military deterrence, Buenos Aires represents a different form of constraint.
Argentine courts and prosecutors have advanced proceedings linked to the 1994 AMIA bombing, issuing findings that senior Iranian officials bear responsibility and designating the attack a crime against humanity.
Warrants and arrest-related measures have followed, some now proceeding in absentia so that non-cooperation no longer halts the process.
Tehran disputes these conclusions, but the judicial record being assembled carries growing diplomatic implications.
This legal trajectory erodes the old perception of Latin America as a permissive periphery. It raises personal risk for senior Iranian figures travelling abroad and increases potential financial exposure for entities linked to designated individuals.
Even without immediate enforcement, these foundations strengthen the prospect of future repercussions.
A less hospitable hemisphere
Three structural trends now converge: tightening maritime surveillance, expanding legal accountability and increased financial scrutiny through sanctions enforcement.
None of this suggests an imminent rupture. Oil can change flags; networks can adapt; facilitators can adopt new identities and routes. But the cost curve has shifted.
Iran has long viewed Latin America as a distant flank—a place where ideology, trade and covert influence could be pursued with limited friction.
That assumption is weakening. A hemisphere once defined by permissiveness is becoming a contested theatre shaped by US presence, judicial persistence and financial vigilance.
The logistical link between Caracas and Tehran still functions. It continues to serve both countries in their shared struggle against sanctions and isolation. But it now faces unprecedented pressure.
And if current trajectory hold, what was once adopted as an avenue of survival may, over time, become an axis of vulnerability.
The ministry told Iran International that since the June 2025 Iran-Israel hostilities, the embassy has worked in a limited capacity, and both the embassy and its visa section “will, for the foreseeable future, have only a fraction of the personnel” they had before the temporary shutdown.
The reduction of operations “is due in particular to Iran’s restrictive policy on accrediting diplomatic personnel,” read the statement.
Despite the squeeze, Berlin said processing has been gradually expanded in recent weeks by outsourcing application intake to an external service provider and moving case handling to the Federal Office for Foreign Affairs.
“These steps have created additional processing capacity,” the ministry said, adding that the changes especially benefit student-visa applicants and Iranian physicians applying for visas to complete professional recognition procedures in Germany.
Appointment rules have also been adjusted “to ensure the largest possible number of applications can be accepted via the external provider,” the Foreign Office said.
It cautioned, however, that “despite these tangible improvements,” limitations at the Tehran post will remain for the time being.
Germany’s visa services in Tehran have operated at reduced capacity since the June 2025 Iran–Israel conflict, when the embassy temporarily closed, canceled appointments, and said new dates would be issued automatically as capacity allows.
Applicants report prolonged delays and uncertainty, staging weekly protests outside the embassy and TLScontact.
Iranian paper Shargh estimated more than 6,000 delayed cases, including about 4,000 family-reunification files, while IRNA previously put 3,000–4,000 Iranian passports as stuck in foreign missions after wartime closures.
AFP reported that at least 34 ships linked to suspected sanctions evasion were Cook Islands–flagged over the period, including 20 cited on US sanctions lists and a further 14 on a British blacklist.
The flag is administered by Maritime Cook Islands, a private operator that runs the registry for the self-governing Pacific territory.
The analysis said shipowners could obtain Cook Islands papers without visiting the country, using a small beachside office – located next to a pizza shop – as their point of contact. The office serves as the headquarters for what AFP described as one of the world’s fastest-growing shipping registries.
New Zealand, which has a free-association relationship with the Cook Islands and retains responsibilities that include foreign affairs, said the findings show a policy divergence with the microstate and that Wellington has repeatedly raised concerns with its government.
“New Zealand continues to hold serious concerns about how the Cook Islands has been managing its shipping registry, which it has repeatedly expressed to the Cook Islands government over many years... This is a completely unacceptable and untenable foreign policy divergence,” said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Winston Peters.
Maritime Cook Islands said it does not harbor sanctioned vessels and that any ships accused of sanctions-busting are promptly deleted from the registry, adding that it conducts due diligence checks before registration.
Western sanctions aim to limit oil revenue for Tehran and Moscow.
Analysts say a “shadow fleet” uses reflagging, opaque ownership and ship-to-ship transfers to move cargoes outside mainstream maritime services – a practice that places added scrutiny on flag registries as enforcement widens to entities connected to suspect voyages.
