What happened this morning
was a reaffirmation of Nietzsche’s “might makes right.” It’s not as if there
was no resistance. In today’s news conference, the military officer stated that
there was considerable resistance and that one helicopter was hit. But there
were 200 U.S. planes operating from 20 bases involved in the operation. How
could a country as small as Venezuela resist such a display of force. Trump and
Rubio stated that Venezuela has to reimburse the U.S. for the “stolen oil.”
Trump claimed that the U.S. built the oil installations and then it was taken
from us. The narrative is plain: that Venezuelans or the Venezuelan governments
are thieves and that today’s operation was just to recover stolen property. By
that logic, the U.S. could have invaded Mexico in 1938 in response to the nationalization
of the oil industry and other countries as well. But the fact is that a nation
has the right to set its own policies, and furthermore the oil was never “confiscated”
as Trump claims since both Carlos Andres Perez in 1976 and Chavez after that
were set on paying indemnification. Furthermore, the claim that Maduro is a
drug trafficker has no basis in fact. It’s been rejected by analysts across the
political spectrum. Even some who favor the overthrow of Maduro state that the
drug trafficking claim has no basis in fact but that Maduro should be removed
because he is a dictator. But by that logic the U.S. should overthrow the
government of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so many non-democratic governments which
are U.S. allies. In fact, the U.S. has always supported dictatorial regimes
that are aligned with Washington, beginning with Franco in the 1950s when the government
of Eisenhower built military bases in Spain.
The Trump administration is
predictably doing everything possible to intimidate the Venezuelan government
into accepting U.S. terms for a “transition” in Caracas. Trump states he does
not rule out “boots on the ground” and insists that under no circumstances will
the U.S accept the continuation of the Chavistas in power in Venezuela. But the
fact is that the Chavista government has a significant base of support, and
that the military up until now has remained loyal to Chávez and subsequently to
Maduro, and that the opposition led by María Corina Machado (with her
unconditional support for Trump and his policies on immigration, sanctions and
the show of military force) has lost considerable support in Venezuela in the
last year. Trump himself, in today's declaration to the press, recognizes that
Machado is not popular in Venezuela. These factors together suggest that the
U.S. will not be able to easily impose the type of government that Trump seeks.
Furthermore, Trump’s talk
that Venezuela must reimburse the United States for the “stolen oil” – a stated
objective of Washington’s actions against Venezuela – runs counter to
Venezuelan nationalistic sentiment. In short, I do not anticipate that Trump will
succeed in imposing on Venezuela a submissive government that is to the liking
of Washington, as it did in Panama in 1989.
