Comment by catlikesshrimp
20 hours ago
Regarding intervention in Venezuela, is that seen as a mistep in the US? In the rest of America it is considered as a win, except of course by Cuba (Cubans are the most, almost the only, affected)
Regarding politicians: Gustavo Petro was the most vocal protester; now that Trump told him in the White house to shut up, he is wagging his tail happily.
The operation in Venezuela could be characterised as an enormous success in the sense that it didn't seem to do anything and therefore was a big improvement on most times the US activates its military. But it was still a misstep in the sense that it keeps US aggression top of mind without achieving very much.
It did help the US government's goals of starving Cuba.
My take, as an American: the outcome seems to be good - Maduro is out of power, his number 2 seems much more willing to play ball and from what I've read Venezuela's economy is now improving as money flowing in has turned around their previously out of control inflation. It managed to not flare into a full scale war, no Americans died - so I think approval is middle to high on it.
That said the justification for it made no sense to me and many others. Trump accused Maduro of narcoterrorism - profiting from the drug trade and violence. Where's the evidence? And the whole bit about the oil ... Usually that's the critique of US actions, not the reason we give; we should be moving full speed towards adopting renewables so an oil grab really doesn't make sense. Though Trump's energy policy has always been entirely backwards.
And we should probably also worry about the example we've set - that we'll just intervene when it suits us with a cooked up justification certainly incentivizes dangerous behavior - how many countries are now thinking about the deterrents they could acquire? But most Americans don't think about unintended consequences of laws or government actions.
One last thought re oil - the smart move would probably be to invest in Venezuelan oil not for sale in the US but for export to India and maybe Europe - try to use it as a replacement for Russian oil. That would in turn hurt Russia's economy and thereby reduce their efforts to wage war in Ukraine. But if that's the plan, Trump has never said that. And it also doesn't really fit his worldview that the Ukraine war should be Europe's problem and not the US's problem. But maybe it'll end up happening anyway, if Venezuela's oil production picks up and the US doesn't actually have the demand for it.
It successfully didn’t backfire on the US.