It’s unlikely Latin America is at risk of an Iranian proxy attack. However . . .

While the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei pledged that any response by the revolutionary government of Iran to the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani would be direct, the threat of an indirect, proxy attack by Iran or forces loyal to it in Latin America hangs particularly heavily in some countries in the region.

Argentina was a victim of Hezbollah- and Iranian-backed attacks in 1992 and 1994, raising the specter that the countries south of the Rio Grande could be a soft target if Iran or its irregular proxies decide to seek revenge on U.S. targets or its allies. Nevertheless, despite recent much-hyped allegations from some corners regarding Iran’s expanding its nefarious influence in the Western Hemisphere, there has been little conclusive evidence that an actual strike could be imminent.

That’s not to say, it couldn’t happen.

Here are the facts: In 1992, the Israeli embassy suffered a car bomb by terrorists with links to Hezbollah. Two years later, the Buenos Airesbased Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina was bombed — a few blocks from where I had lived only a few months early. In that case, too, credible investigators alleged that Hezbollah was involved, as well as high-level Iranian officials in the attacks that killed 85 people and injured hundreds more. To this day, there have been no convictions in the attack, because, in part, of an alleged coverup by the Argentine government at the time and later by the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who is now the country’s vice president.

And while Iran has increased its diplomatic contacts in the region, through former president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa, those contacts have not produced conclusive evidence of lurking imminent attacks. In fact, despite repeated requests by the U.S. Congress and the State Department — and other agencies — declassified and classified reports have failed to turn up concrete evidence of suspected nefarious activities by Iran to set the stage for future attacks against US or allied interests in the Western Hemisphere south of the Rio Grande.

There have been, to be sure, credible stories of Hezbollah activities in the lawless tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. But even those have failed to turn up believable proof of the active training camps or attack plans that some have claimed. Instead, most of the Hezbollah activity in the area revolves mostly around the raising of funds though illicit activities and by sympathetic mostly Lebanese groups. The much talked about training camps of bloodthirsty Hezbollah terrorists have never been revealed, even according to the State Department itself in a leaked cable.

The Maduro government’s connections to drug trafficking, arms dealing, money laundering and other illicit markets appear to have Hezbollah connections. But, again, those are mostly in funding rather than the placement of terrorist cells ready to strike at

U.S. citizens. Why would Hezbollah — or even Nicolás Maduro, for that matter — want to risk a cash cow for a single terrorist strike that would bring down the full wrath of the United States?

In short, yes, there are Iranian activities in the hemisphere, and there is well-founded fear of what that could mean among the only countries that have experienced the bloody brutality of Iran and its proxies, in this case Argentina. But does that make it Ground Zero for a terrorist attack at the United States’ soft underbelly? Unlikely.

The operational capacity appears limited, and there is too much to lose from the more lucrative activities in which they they are already engaged.