Iran’s friends vanishing: Why Maduro’s arrest matters for Israel -
analysis
While Venezuela was not an Iranian proxy in the Syrian or Hezbollah mold, it functioned as an enabler, providing funds that helped sustain Iran’s proxies. Illustrative image of Iranian and Venezuelan flags.(photo credit: esfera/Shutterstock)By HERB KEINONJANUARY 4, 2026 22:18Updated: JANUARY 4, 2026 22:23For Israel, the significance of Washington’s weekend arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife goes well beyond the shiver it likely sent down spines in Tehran.
Yes, the spectacle of a US-led operation removing a defiant anti-American autocrat will inevitably sharpen anxieties among Iran’s leaders about their own vulnerabilities, especially at a time when protests are roiling the country.
But further meaning is found elsewhere, in the dismantling of yet another supporting pillar in the global network Iran painstakingly constructed to finance, shield, and sustain its war against Israel. Venezuela was never an Iranian proxy in the way Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, or Bashar al-Assad’s Syria were.
Caracas was not directly under Tehran’s thumb and operational command, nor did it host Iranian forces on the scale seen in the Middle East. Yet, through Hezbollah, Venezuela became something no less important to the ayatollahs – a critical offshore hub that generated cash, laundered funds, moved operatives, and enabled Iran to project power far from the Mideast.
Maduro’s arrest comes on the heels of a series of blows to Iran’s regional position. Israel battered Hamas in Gaza, decapitated Hezbollah in Lebanon, and degraded Houthi capabilities in Yemen. Also, Assad's regime fell in Syria. Taken together, these developments illustrate Iran’s declining power.
 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima after his capture by US forces. January 3, 2026. (credit: Screenshot via Truth Social/Section 27a of the copyright act)Tehran’s problem today is not restricted to the protests in the streets or the pummeling it absorbed in June, but also the unraveling of far-flung support systems it spent years and billions of dollars putting together abroad.
Investigations by US law enforcement agencies and think tanks such as the Atlantic Council over the last few years have shown that Hezbollah did not operate in Venezuela as a dormant terror cell awaiting activation; rather, it functioned as a crime-terror enterprise intermeshed in the Venezuelan economy and protected by the government.
'Global Goals'Hezbollah trafficked cocaine from Venezuela, laundered money, transferred weapons, and helped the Islamic Republic evade US sanctions. Already in 2018, the US Justice Department concluded that Hezbollah rivaled the major Latin American cartels in scale and sophistication. But there was one glaring difference: Revenue generated in South America did not stay there; it was sent to Lebanon, where it helped pay for the terrorist organization’s military buildup.
Beyond being a reliable source of income for Hezbollah – Iran’s senior proxy – Venezuela offered something else as well: a protected air and maritime bridge linking Tehran, Damascus, and Caracas. This allowed the transfer of Iranian personnel, dual-use goods, fuel, and cash. In other words, Venezuela under actively helped Iran pursue its global goals.
While Venezuela was not an Iranian proxy in the Syrian or Hezbollah mold, it functioned as an enabler, providing funds that helped sustain Iran’s proxies. In that sense, it was very much part of Iran’s world.
Just how much a part of that world became clearer on Sunday when Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said in a television address that the US attack had “Zionist undertones.”This claim of “Zionist” involvement was not evidence of Israeli involvement; it was, however, evidence of how closely the regime identified itself with Iran’s worldview. It was a claim aimed both inward and outward.
Inward, it was aimed at supporters of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, who turned Israel into an imperialist villain, steeped in traditional antisemitic tropes, with which to rally supporters. Outward, it was directed at the region, where anti-Zionist messaging has long served as a convenient rallying cry, since Latin America’s political culture still contains reflexive sympathy for anti-American narratives into which Israel is often effortlessly folded.
Rodríguez brought up Israel not because it was involved in the US operation, but because it fit Theran’s ideological template adopted by Venezuela: domestic failures explained through foreign conspiracy, with “Zionism” serving as the all-purpose, go-to scapegoat.
The arrest of Maduro is significant for Israel because it removes yet another important piece from the puzzle that Iran has been putting together for years. Not a piece of the puzzle within striking distance of Israel, but one that played an important supporting role for those who are within that striking distance.
Israel’s struggle with Iran over the years has been about nuclear capability, ballistic missiles, and deterrence. Less attention has been paid to the quieter contest over access, financing, and safe havens.
Venezuela was part of that quieter front – never decisive on its own, but valuable to Iran precisely because it was distant and often overlooked. If, with Maduro’s arrest, Venezuela is removed from Tehran’s orbit, then the Islamic Republic’s options will narrow further, and this precisely at a time when it is coming under considerable strain from within
'Piece By Piece'Venezuela’s next step – what it will become – is uncertain. But what seems certain is that after this US intervention, the days when it provided Iran with a protected foothold in the Western Hemisphere are quickly coming to a close. And for Israel, that is reason enough to smile.But words in a recent interview from Venezuela’s most prominent opposition figure, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, give Israel an even greater reason to grin. She has been explicit in describing Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas as foreign forces that penetrated Venezuela under Maduro’s rule. In her telling, Venezuela was not merely misgoverned; it was commandeered by external actors whose interests ran directly counter to those of a sovereign country.
She accompanied that framework with warm words toward Israel, rarely heard from Caracas in decades. Asked in a November Israel Hayom interview directly whether a post-Maduro Venezuela would restore relations with Israel and move its embassy to Jerusalem, Machado replied: “Certainly. Venezuela will be Israel’s closest ally in Latin America.” She said that cooperation with Israel would be part of the broader Venezuelan struggle against the “crime and terror” that had characterized the country under Maduro.
For Israel, those words matter less because they guarantee policy outcomes and more because they mark a conceptual break with the worldview that has defined Venezuela since Chávez severed ties with Jerusalem in 2009. Under Chávez and Maduro, hostility toward Israel was a badge of ideological belonging to an anti-American, anti-Western camp aligned with Tehran. Machado’s language signals a rejection of that framework altogether.
For years, Iran sought to demonstrate that its reach was global and its options limitless. Today, the picture looks different. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen – and now Venezuela – tell a story not of expansion, but of contraction.
Maduro’s fall does not overhaul Israel’s strategic reality overnight, nor does it end the war
Israel is fighting against Iran’s proxies. But it does represent another incremental setback in Iran’s global posture – a reminder that Iran’s power was built patiently, piece by piece, and is now being dismantled the same way. |
