By Andrew L. Jaffee

Americans should know that Palestinian, Islamist terrorist groups are a threat on U.S. soil — not just someone else’s problem “over there” in the Middle East. If citizens ever find out, could U.S. public opinion finally galvanize whole-heartedly against Hezbollah? — especially now that the Washington Times has revealed that, “Hezbollah uses Mexican drug routes into U.S. - Works beside smuggler cartels to fund operations:”

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say. …

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America’s tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S.

Hezbollah relies on “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels,” said Michael Braun, who just retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“They work together,” said Mr. Braun. “They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.

“They’ll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling].”

His comments were confirmed by six U.S. officials, including law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism specialists. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. …

Hezbollah also threatens the stability of the entire Middle East by pushing for an Islamist takeover of Lebanon’s nascent democracy and by constantly harassing Israel. Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of Israel. The BBC admits that the cause of the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah lays squarely at the feet of Hezbollah. In 2006, the group used Lebanese civilians as human shields. It also specifically targeted Israeli civilians by launching rockets at urban centers. These Islamist terrorists were indiscriminate in targeting civilians — they killed Arab children with their rockets. Hezbollah is defying U.N. Resolution 1559, calling for the disarming of all militias based in Lebanon. The group is a proxy for two of the world’s most active state sponsors of terrorism, Syria and Iran. Should I go on?

Note how much Hezbollah has in common with Mexican drug lords and their paramilitary arms. All we need is professional terrorists and professional drug smugglers in league as comrades-in-arms — on our own border, no less.

We either act now and nip this in the bud, or we wait for another 911.