For years, the media and the U.S. government have repeated a familiar refrain: that the regime of now-ailing Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, however annoying, poses no serious threat to the national security of the United States. Compelling evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Under Chavez, Venezuela has systematically opposed U.S. values and initiatives throughout the Western Hemisphere and the world in general. It has tried to influence political events in other Latin American countries, sometimes successfully. It has supported guerrilla movements and terrorist organizations in other countries (most notably Colombia). And it has facilitated the activities of drug traffickers active in the region, even as it has destabilized the regional status quo through massive military purchases.

The most dangerous threat to the U.S. from Venezuela, however, results from its facilitation and encouragement of the penetration of the Western Hemisphere by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since 2005, with Venezuela’s assistance, Iran has created an extensive regional network of economic, diplomatic, industrial and commercial activities, with significant effect. The sum total of Iran’s declared investments in the region now stands at some $20 billion, at a time when the Iranian economy itself is in exceedingly poor condition. The depths of Iran’s involvement in the Western Hemisphere are all the more surprising—and significant—given that there is no historical or cultural affinity whatsoever between Iran and the countries on this side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the Iranian regime in recent years has exhibited an unprecedented level of interest and involvement in the region, facilitated by its burgeoning strategic partnership with Caracas.

When it released its National Strategy for Counterterrorism back in June, the Obama administration had a lot to crow about. Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama Bin Laden had been killed a month earlier by U.S. special forces in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Persistent operations by the United States and its Coalition partners over the preceding year had succeeded in degrading the organization's capabilities in a number of key theaters (including Afghanistan and Pakistan). And counterterrorism operations then underway would net major gains in the months that followed, not least the late September death by Predator drone of influential Yemeni ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki.

US repositioning forces in region after Iraq withdrawal; As US-Pak ties sour, importance of NDN grows; US ordered to leave Manas in 2014; Iran levels threats at Turkey

WHEN the "Arab Spring" unexpectedly broke out late last year, Natan Sharansky waxed optimistic. Writing in the Washington Post in March, the former Soviet refusenik who ranks as Israel's best known pro-democracy activist argued that the grassroots revolts that unseated Tunisian strongman Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali and Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak marked the start of a democratic tsunami that could soon engulf the region. Regional conditions, he counseled, were ripe for just this sort of radical surgery.

These days, however, Israelis who share this hopeful outlook are exceedingly hard to find. A recent visit found policymakers and academics of all political stripes deeply apprehensive of the tectonic shifts that have taken place in their region this year. They have good reason to be. Israel's security environment, never favorable, has taken a dramatic turn for the worse.

Ten years after the attacks of Sept. 11 and the start of the war on terror, it is fair to ask: Where do we stand in this struggle? Listening to the rhetoric of the White House, it would be easy to get the impression that Washington is just days away from declaring “Mission accomplished.” With the death in May of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. commandos, the United States “is within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda,” newly appointed Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters in July. “I think we have them on the run.” More recently, John Brennan, the White House’s counterterrorism czar, said much the same, telling the Associated Press that the group that carried out the most devastating attacks on the U.S. homeland in American history is “on the ropes.”

Such triumphalism, however, is both premature and unfounded. After all, the contemporary terrorist threat confronting the United States and its allies is considerably larger than just al Qaeda. America today faces a trio of distinct - and daunting - strategic challenges.

Interior Ministry eyes new Internet curbs;
Putin and company: popular at home, but not abroad

A year after the attacks of September 11th, then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in contextualizing the terrorist threat facing the country, made a telling assessment. “Hezbollah may be the A-team of terrorists,” Mr. Armitage told an audience at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, “and maybe al-Qaida is actually the B-team.” The description was apt, and remains so. With a presence in an estimated forty countries on five different continents, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia represents one of the very few terrorist groups active today that possess a truly global presence and reach.

This footprint extends not only to the greater Middle East and Europe, but to the Western Hemisphere as well. Over the past quarter-century, Hezbollah has devoted considerable energy and resources to establishing an extensive network of operations throughout the Americas. Today, its web of activity in our hemisphere stretches from Canada to Argentina, and encompasses a wide range of illicit activities and criminal enterprises, from drug trafficking to recruitment to fundraising and training.

Make no mistake: U.N. Security Council sanctions and additional U.S. and European pressures are hurting Iran. Tehran is having a harder time importing food and other key goods, its foreign investment is drying up, financial firms and shipping companies are turning down its business, and its central bank is running short of hard currency.

What sanctions are not doing, however, is achieving their goal - to persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Not only is Iran making more progress in its nuclear program, it's acting more boldly in its region, threatening U.S. interests while distributing weapons that are killing U.S. troops. Because neither current nor additional sanctions alone will deter Tehran, and because a nuclear Iran would be a disaster for the United States and the world, Washington must seriously consider a military option.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the recent death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of American commandos is the reaction it has elicited throughout the Middle East. That is because, while most regional governments have welcomed news of the al Qaeda chief’s demise, not everyone is embracing the post-bin Laden era.

The Taliban, for example, have been quick to lionize the terror mastermind and threaten retribution against the coalition and its allies. “Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets,” a spokesman for the movement’s Pakistani branch has warned. “America will be our second target.”

President Obama's announcement last night that al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. special operations forces outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad is welcome news indeed. The death of the man responsible for the worst attack on the U.S. in history represents a major counterterrorism victory, and long overdue justice for the victims of 9/11. But it's hardly the "end of the War on Terror," as some observers have been quick to suggest.