Inside the Drug Trade That Funds Iran’s Levantine Empire

Dubbed “captain courage” by some, the amphetamine Captagon became popular among Islamic State fighters along with other combatants in the Syrian civil war. Paul Wood investigates the major role this powerful stimulant plays in the economy of Bashar Assad’s Syria and, to a lesser-extent, that of Hizballah-dominated Lebanon—two countries that are clients of the Islamic Republic:

You might find Captagon fueling a party in Riyadh or keeping a Baghdad taxi driver awake through a double shift. It is, of course, illegal. And horribly addictive. It is said to be by far Syria’s biggest export, providing more than 90 percent of the country’s foreign currency. The Assad regime may be the world’s biggest narco state.

Much of [the revenue generated by Captagon sales] goes to the Syrian mukhabarat, or secret police; “the intelligence”; and the army’s 4th Division, led by President Assad’s brother, Maher. . . . It works the same way in Lebanon. [As drug dealer] has to pay off the local police, the mukhabarat, the intelligence services, and Hizballah, the Shiite militia that is controlled by Iran and which has fought for the Syrian regime.

The Assad regime’s involvement in Captagon is much, much bigger than just extorting smugglers. . . . Last year, $5.5-6 billion worth of Syrian Captagon was seized abroad. The total value of Syria’s legal exports is $800 million. But . . . the Captagon trade is at least five times what was seized, if not ten-to-twenty times bigger, given how easy it is to smuggle across borders in the Middle East. . . . By comparison, the total value of drugs exported to the U.S. by the Mexican cartels is thought to be $5-7.5 billion a year.

Read more at Spectator

More about: Drugs, Hizballah, Iran, Lebanon, Syria

 

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa