Jonathan Schancer at the New
York Post offers a piece on how President Trump can repair the damage the Obama
administration caused by derailing a major DEA operation so they could have their
Iran nuclear deal.
The Obama White House
systematically dismantled a top-secret government initiative called Project
Cassandra, which was designed to target Hezbollah’s $1 billion in annual drug
proceeds. The gripping story, by Politico’s Josh Meyer, lays bare the details
of the Lebanese terrorist group’s cocaine and crime schemes, and suggests Obama
allowed the activities to continue so as to not upset Iran, Hezbollah’s patron,
amidst nuclear negotiations.
Put aside for a moment that
Obama may have provided a glide path to a terror group’s drug activities so he
could pursue a deeply flawed nuclear deal that only paused Iran’s march to the
bomb, yet yielded this state sponsor of terrorism some $150 billion. We’re now
faced with the urgent challenge of trying to rebuild a government bureaucracy
that was gutted.
Here’s what needs to happen.
First, President Trump has
yet to choose a new chief for the Drug Enforcement Administration. This is an
urgent need. And as my colleague Emanuele Ottolenghi noted last month in The
Hill, the new pick must appreciate “the growing convergence between transnational
organized crime and terrorist groups like Hezbollah.”
Once the right person is in
place, we need to revitalize the agency. Yes, that means more money and
jumpstarting the interagency task force that fights narco-terrorism abroad.
But perhaps more important,
we need to clarify the DEA’s mission. This crucial component of the bureaucracy
needs to focus less on domestic gangs (let law enforcement do that) and get
back to the business of fighting our drug wars abroad — where they can actually
be won.
From there, the Treasury
Department needs to swing into action. Hezbollah is already sanctioned under
our terrorism program. But it must be named as a Transnational Criminal
Organization and slapped with a Kingpin Act designation. This will give our
economic-warfare fighters additional tools to target the group for its drug and
other criminal enterprises.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
You can also read my
Counterterrorism magazine piece on the DEA’s fight against narco terrorists, drug lords and death merchants via the below link:
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