Donald Trump has stated that he is considering military action against Venezuela. The oil rich South American country has just sworn in its new Constituent Assembly which President Nicholas Maduro’s supporters control after July’s election for the new chamber.
The United States continues to fund the right wing opposition who are opposed to Maduro’s reforms.
Today, when asked about his plans for Venezuela, Donald Trump responded in the following way:
We have many options for Venezuela… the people are suffering and they’re dying. We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.
The realistic prospect is that a US led war on Venezuela is highly more likely than one of North Korea. As I wrote recently in The Duran:
From a propaganda angle, a so-called regime change war on Venezuela would be far less impactful than one on North Korea. Fewer Americans see Venezuela as a cartoon villain vis-a-vis North Korea and furthermore, much of the US based Latin American community would resent a war against a smaller Latin American country, especially a war waged by Donald Trump who has terrible PR among Latin Americans.
From a military point of view as well as a political perspective, it would however be a safe option. Venezuela’s armed forces cannot complete with those of the US and since Russia closed its base in Cuba in the year 2002, Latin America is from a military point of view, an American peninsula, even though politically the United States has lost tremendous amounts of clout over the last decades as many far-right dictatorships across Latin America have fallen to democratic socialist governments.
While Russia and China would likely condemn such a war, they would not participate in the conflict as they might do in Korea.
Reprinted with permission from The Duran.
