Ronald Reagan helped to usher in a hopeful wave of democratization in Latin America. In one country after another, multi-party elections ended decades of single-party rule and military dictatorship. But today, that legacy is under threat - and so is our own homeland. The southern front in the War on Terror, which runs through Latin America’s institutions of state, is cracking under a combined assault of political revolution, Islamist terrorism, and the world’s most heavily armed...

The terms Caribbean and South American refer to aggregations of countries, not to specific areas within legally defined boundaries. Thirty-one countries form the Caribbean, which is divided into English, French, Spanish, and Dutch linguistic regions. The majority of the countries are English-speaking. The total Muslim population by country varies from 4 to 15 percent. The largest Muslim populations are in English-speaking countries such as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. There are small...

"We have to be very careful about what is going on in Venezuela, especially what is going on in the private universities," Mario Silva asserts on his pro-Chávez television talk show La Hojilla ("The Razor Blade") in late November 2007. The provocative host points out that in television news footage of a recent student march against proposed changes to the Venezuelan constitution, which were voted down December 2, a leader of the marchers crosses a police barricade...

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chávez, who says he intends to remain in office for decades to come, lost a referendum 14 months ago that would have removed the constitutional limit on his tenure. When he announced another referendum in December, the first polls showed him losing again by a wide margin. Yet, as Sunday's vote approaches, his government is predicting victory -- and some polls show him with a narrow advantage. How did Latin America's self-styled "Bolivarian...

Migrants from the Middle East have been circulating to the Americas for over a century. Scholarship on the subject, though rich, has often fallen through the cracks of academic geographical divisions. Clearly, this is a topic that merits further scholarly attention and debate, especially in the post-9/11 era. Middle Eastern migrants to Latin America traveled predominantly from the eastern Mediterranean region variously known as the Arab East, the Levant, or the Mashreq. Part of the Ottoman...

Iran is increasing its military and espionage presence rapidly throughout Latin America, according to U.S. and Israeli officials, turning the region into a major base for terrorism and subversion. The disturbing trend has been building for several years and has deep roots in a presence that Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups have had in South America for at least two decades, experts say. Now, though, it’s becoming quite open, with Iran using its consulates to erect front...

Hezbollah could be one of the first security challenges faced by the new Obama administration. An official government report concludes the Iranian-backed Islamic terror group has been forming sleeper cells throughout the United States that could become operational. The report estimates Hezbollah could become a much more potent national security threat by 2014. The group was responsible for the 1983 Beirut Marine Barracks bombing, which killed 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French servicemen. ...

Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip. The Venezuelan president's decision on January 6 to expel Israel's ambassador from Caracas -- the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step -- has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians. Hamas has welcomed Chavez's "courageous decision," while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Hezbollah...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has defied the United States unlike any other leader in the Western Hemisphere since Cuba's Fidel Castro. Chavez has strong ties with state sponsors of terror, suppresses democracy at home, and has worked to destabilize his neighbors. Recently, Chavez has also helped the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah establish a base in the Western hemisphere. For years, the U.S. State Department has stated its concern that Hezbollah raises funds "among the sizable...

Iran, the ultimate mischief maker with global reach, astounding patience, a shameless marriage to mayhem and terrorism, and interests that fall squarely in opposition to those of the United States, is making major diplomatic inroads under Washington's nose. It's amazing, really. Iran, after all, is regarded by most of the world as an outlaw country. Sanctions are in place on much of its military-industrial complex, and international loan guarantees are virtually impossible to come by. The...