In a detailed report, Josh Meyer explains how the Obama White House, for the sake of securing a nuclear deal with Tehran, stymied a major federal investigation that came close to dismantling the financing network of the Islamic Republic’s Lebanon-based proxy Hizballah.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) amassed evidence that Hizballah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military, political, [and terrorist] organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering, and other criminal activities.

Over the next eight years, agents . . . used wiretaps, undercover operations, and informants to map Hizballah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.

They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hizballah and its state sponsor, Iran.

But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra’s leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests, and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury Departments delayed, hindered, or rejected their requests.

Among those active in protecting Hizballah was John Brennan, Barack Obama’s senior counterterrorism adviser and later CIA director, who argued that there were “moderate elements” within the terrorist group that the U.S. should strengthen.

In the course of the investigation, agents working with Cassandra uncovered Hizballah’s role in providing Iraqi insurgents with the sophisticated explosives that they used to kill hundreds of American soldiers. The same arms-trafficking network also supplied Iran with parts for its illegal nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. At its head was one Ali Fayad, who worked for the Russian-backed Yanukovych regime in Ukraine and was Vladimir Putin’s chief arms dealer, responsible for getting weapons to Syria to aid Bashar al-Assad. When DEA officials had Fayad in their sights, and pressured the State Department to arrange for his extradition, Foggy Bottom demurred.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.