Comment by estearum
7 days ago
> If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?
Uhh, no?
My opinion is that US interventions are incredibly risky. There have been numerous successes. There have also been numerous failures. Both have required immense resources and focus from us.
Some interventions are worth the risk, and others are not. I have not seen any compelling rationale for the risk-reward of this particular intervention, and have very low hopes for the follow through, which makes the risk-reward calculus even worse.
Agree.
If I wear a blindfold, cross a highway and am not hit by a car, am I willing to concede that crossing the highway blindfolded is safe?
You don't think Venezuela having the largest oils reserves on the planet and it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China make the possible reward fairly significant from a US standpoint?
Sure it's conceivable. Can you go a level deeper on your analysis?
Are you suggesting that cutting off oil flow to those nations will be advantageous to us? Is this like... tomorrow? During a potential armed conflict? When?
By what specific mechanism does the US assert "control" over the oil? POTUS just now said it's via a ground occupation "until transition of power." What's the transition plan?
Not cutting off, but it's enough that the US increases oil supply which lowers the prices to significantly hurt Russia and Iran. And then you have China which is the main consumer of Venezuelan oil so you get another point of leverage.
Also probably helps to ensure the petro dollar is here to stay for longer.
Obviously this is a very shallow analysis, and there's definitely significant risks, but I do think it's obvious that it has large potential upsides.
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China is heavily dependent on oil imports and a big part of Germany's defeat in WW2 was due to difficulties obtaining oil. This move may - if successful - change the calculation over Taiwan
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"…it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China…"
You're making a pretty good case for high risk.
You could easily say the same thing about not doing anything.
But also remember that Russia is occupied in Ukraine and couldn't even help the Assad regime which was a much closer ally, and same with Iran.
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> strong ally to Russia, Iran and China
It's more like (similar to other sanctioned countries) "forcibly coerced by the USA into being a ally of Russia, Iran and China by sanctions".
Since the purpose of the interventions is to get more access for US oil companies, they are always successes