The Obama administration decided to prioritize Iran nuclear deal negotiations ahead of anti-Hezbollah narcoterrorism operations, a decision former anti-terrorism insiders say reverberates today.
Two Obama administration national security leaders who were deeply involved in leading the U.S.’s multi-agency anti-Hezbollah operation dubbed “Project Cassandra” told the Washington Examiner of their continued frustration the Obama administration blocked some of their attempts to target Hezbollah’s leadership and financing, as they say President Barack Obama focused on pursuing 2015’s Iran deal over indicting members of the powerful Iranian terror proxy.
Their comments followed Iranian strikes against U.S. positions in Iraq after the United States killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ specialized Quds Force, who was key to funding and guiding Hezbollah’s terrorist operations, including as a proxy for Iran in its conflicts around the world.
David Asher, former senior adviser to U.S. Special Operations Command, and Derek Maltz, former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s special operations division, supported the president’s decision to take out Iran’s terror chief, though the Trump administration can do more to disrupt Hezbollah’s illicit global networks. The two described their yearslong effort uncovering a Hezbollah network funneling South American drug cartel money into terror coffers and cocaine into the U.S. and detailed Iranian operations funding the killing of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Asher said the Obama administration shot down his team’s efforts to go after many of Hezbollah’s operations directly because it worried about rocking the boat with Iran.
“Yes, it was impacted. I knew it was impacted because I had many friends who were working on Iran diplomacy, and they were critical — including in meetings that we had — of our effort,” Asher said.
Asher said then-Attorney General Eric Holder claimed to be supportive and “told us he was going to bring the proposal to the president personally, but we never heard anything back because he apparently got shut down by the national security adviser and others.”
“They had their reasons for doing this, but I don’t consider them good reasons,” Asher said. “They got scared of what this would do. If we’re indicting the Iranians and Hezbollah and taking out their financial linkages to the world, how will they negotiate?”
Asher said picking between negotiating with Iran and going after its terror proxies was a false choice.
“You can do both,” Asher said, adding he was “impressed” President Trump seemed to recognize this.
Maltz agreed.
“Obviously the Iran deal was more important to the Obama administration than anything law enforcement was doing,” Maltz said. “It certainly doesn’t seem like it was a great deal for our national security.”
John Fernandez, the DEA’s assistant special agent in charge of the Special Operations Division’s Counter-Narcoterrorism Operations Center, told the Washington Examiner anti-Hezbollah investigations didn’t stop during the Obama administration, but the Trump administration takes the problem much more seriously.
“A lot of our good investigations were being conducted during the previous administration because we were following criminal evidence,” said Fernandez. “However, yeah, think it’s safe to say that under the previous administration it was not prioritized as the threat that President Trump has prioritized it as.”
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions created DOJ’s new Hezbollah Financing and Narcoterrorism Team in 2018 in the wake of the Project Cassandra controversy. Many Obama-era officials defended Obama’s actions, and Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes dismissed the claims as “non-fact-based anti-Iran deal propaganda.”
Asher and Maltz remain dissatisfied with the Obama administration for not pursuing Iranian-linked terror leaders more effectively.
“Bringing charges against these leaders of Hezbollah, like Hashim Safi al Din, would’ve had a toxic impact throughout Hezbollah because it was the convergence of the drug cartels and Hezbollah. He was right in the middle,” Maltz said. “Why wouldn’t DOJ bring charges against a lynchpin of Hezbollah’s criminal activities?”
“We had the largest money-laundering scheme in the history of the world running right through New York,” Asher said. “We penetrated the network at the highest levels, had great high-level sources, were ready to impose the RICO statute on them, proposed that to the Department of Justice repeatedly, and they turned us down.”
DOJ did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner‘s questions about Project Cassandra and its anti-Hezbollah operations.
The two also tied Soleimani firmly to Hezbollah’s drug networks.
Asher said Hezbollah’s activities were “all tied to the Quds Force” and “you can’t effectively delineate Hezbollah’s terrorism from the Iranians — it’s all being controlled by the Iranians and the man who controlled it was Qassem Soleimani.”
“Soleimani was in charge of the Quds Force, and it was the Quds Force that was expanding their global footprint and operations to move cocaine and money,” Maltz said. “They had operatives engaging to build up Hezbollah’s ability to generate cash … They rely on drug trafficking and counterfeiting and other criminal activities to generate hundreds of millions of dollars to support their terrorist agenda.”
“I also don’t know why they wouldn’t support killing Qassam Soleimani before he killed another several hundred Americans,” Asher said. “I’m very pleased President Trump finally had the good sense to take action because it was a long time coming for a man who had the blood of thousands of lives on his hands.”
After the U.S. killed Soleimiani, Iranian media released photos of him meeting in Lebanon with Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, days before Soleimani returned to Iraq and was blown up in a U.S. airstrike alongside pro-Iranian militia leader Abu Mahd al Muhandis.
“There is no one on par with Qassem Soleimani or Abu Mahd al Muhandis whom we can execute and avenge their blood… The American army killed them and it will pay the price,” Nasrallah threatened after his patron was killed. “When the coffins of American soldiers and officers start to return to the United States, Trump and his administration will realize they have lost.”
