One month ago, the Department of Defense released a report in which intelligence officials said operatives from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were cultivating terrorist networks in Latin America that “could be called upon to attack the United States in the event of a conflict over Iran’s nuclear program.” The report provided the first official warning from the DOD about Iranian paramilitary activities in the Western Hemisphere and highlighted the links between Iran and the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

Those are unsettling words for three reasons. First, regardless of Iran’s recent agreement with Turkey to exchange enriched uranium for fuel-rods, the likelihood of a conflict over their nuclear program remains high, especially if Israel continues to feel threatened. Second, the report adds a new sense of seriousness to the existence of the Iranian terrorist organization Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere; and, finally, it further showcases that totalitarian regimes worldwide are seeking to coalesce against the United States.

Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, the terrorist organization that had killed the most Americans was not the Sunni Muslim terrorist organization known as al-Qaeda; it was not even an off-shoot of al-Qaeda. It was the Shi’a Muslim terrorist organization known as Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is nothing more than the malicious action-arm of Iran. It’s the group that carried out, at the behest of Iran, the 1983 attacks on the U.S. barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 Marines. It’s also the group responsible for many of the rocket attacks on Israel.

What the report does not indicate is how long the cultivation of these terrorist networks has been happening. In 2003, a Venezuelan intelligence director, General Marcos Ferreira, resigned as head of the country’s border control agency and subsequently clued in the West on the Chávez government’s close cooperation with global terrorist groups – particularly Hezbollah. According to Ferreira, Venezuela had been welcoming Hezbollah into the country since early 2002 to promote the infiltration of terrorists into the United States. By the end of 2002, Israeli military intelligence disclosed that a shipment of arms seized by their commandos had departed from a Venezuelan port and docked in an Iranian port before sailing through the Suez Canal bound for Lebanon-the ship’s cargo included missiles to be delivered to Hezbollah.

In 2005, American journalist Barbara Newman reported that the Venezuelan Island of Margarita had become a main center of financing for Hezbollah in Latin America and that members of the organization were entering the U.S. with Venezuelan documents obtained on that island. By 2006, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security further asserted that the government of Hugo Chávez was providing support to terrorists, including false identity documents that “could prove useful to radical Islamic groups.” The report concluded that Venezuela “is emerging as a potential hub of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, providing assistance to the Islamic radicals from the Middle East.”

So when the Department of Defense, the most authoritative of these voices, releases a report that publicly refers to the danger of Iranian terrorist networks in Latin America – networks that we know have been diligently training and fundraising there for eight years – the red flag should not simply be up and waving; it should be beating us in the face.

While it’s certainly a given that Iran would order Hezbollah to retaliate against Israel should the Israelis strike defensively, is it now a given that the United States would face a similar retaliation as well if such a strike occurred? It would be a new day in America if rockets from within Mexico began bombarding our border towns in Arizona, our ships off the coast of Cuba or our gas and oil pipelines coming in from a rural Canada. In fact, a couple rockets from any of these fronts would catalyze enough fear to grind all other functionings of the government to a halt.

As our country moves forward in the United Nations with yet another round of economic sanctions against Iran, Secretary Clinton will have to face this new threat dynamic as she weighs the options before her. Backing down now, however, is not an option. The only thing more disturbing than Iran with a nuclear weapon is knowing it will have a well established network of terrorists and states in our backyard to help use that technology against us should the need arise.

Drew Davis received his Masters of International Affairs and National Security from the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.