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→Project Cassandra
====Project Cassandra====
====Project Cassandra====
On May 18, 2010 John Brennan told a Washington conference including [[Lebanese]] leaders that the Obama administration was looking for ways to build up “moderate elements” within [[Hezbollah]]. “Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” saying it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and, ultimately, a political party with representatives in the Lebanese Parliament and Cabinet. “There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing,” Brennan said. “And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”
In practice, the administration’s willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah, combined with Obama's desire for the Iran nuke deal, translated into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others.<ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-usa-hezbollah/u-s-wants-to-build-up-hezbollah-moderates-adviser-idUSTRE64I0UM20100519?type=politicsNews</ref> Hezbollah was known to be selling approximately $200 million a month in illegal [[narcotic]]s in the United States at this time.
A confidential DEA assessment more than a year into Obama's second term concluded that Hezbollah’s business affairs entity “has leveraged relationships with corrupt foreign government officials and transnational criminal actors … creating a network that can be utilized to move metric ton quantities of cocaine, launder drug proceeds on a global scale, and procure weapons and precursors for explosives.” Hezbollah “has at its disposal one of the most capable networks of actors coalescing elements of transnational organized crime with terrorism in the world,” the assessment concluded.
A confidential DEA assessment more than a year into Obama's second term concluded that Hezbollah’s business affairs entity “has leveraged relationships with corrupt foreign government officials and transnational criminal actors … creating a network that can be utilized to move metric ton quantities of cocaine, launder drug proceeds on a global scale, and procure weapons and precursors for explosives.” Hezbollah “has at its disposal one of the most capable networks of actors coalescing elements of transnational organized crime with terrorism in the world,” the assessment concluded.