Brian Cloughley
President Trump called President Putin on the telephone on 3 May and they spoke for about an hour. The Washington Post reported Trump as saying "I thought it was a very positive conversation I had with President Putin on Venezuela." This was in spite of the fact that when the wife of the US-backed anti-government rebel chief, Juan Guaido, was the guest of Trump in the Oval Office on 27 March he promised he would "fix" Venezuela and insisted that "Russia has to get out."
On 1 May US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that regarding Venezuela, Donald Trump "has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible. If that's what's required, that's what the United States will do." The same day, National Security Adviser John Bolton said on CNN that "The Russians like nothing better than putting a thumb in our eyes. They'd love to get effective control of a country in this hemisphere... We've made it clear to the Russians... why we think that behaviour is unacceptable to us." They were followed by Senator Lindsey Graham who 𝕏 tweeted "Cuba, Russia send troops to prop Maduro up in Venezuela while we talk sanction. Where is our aircraft carrier?"
Thanks to Washington's sanctions, the people of Venezuela are suffering grievously. Children are starving and medical care is in crisis because it's always ordinary folk who suffer when people like Trump's henchmen, Bolton and Pompeo, try to provoke revolution.
On April 30 Pompeo tweeted that "Today interim President Juan Guaido announced start of Operación Libertad. The US Government fully supports the Venezuelan people in their quest for freedom and democracy. Democracy cannot be defeated."
Yes it can. It is being defeated in many countries by the intrigues of the Washington War Machine which zooms, rolls and blasts its way from crisis to crisis, causing economic chaos and untold human misery along its blood-spattered route.
One of the latest coup-supporting allegations came from Bolton, a major supporter of the 2003 Iraq war fiasco. It should be remembered that four weeks before the US invaded Iraq the newspaper Haaretz reported that "US Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on [17 February 2003] that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards." He didn't mention Venezuela at that time, but it has now appeared on his target screen, and on 2 May he told the media "We have been planning for what we call the day after the day after Maduro for quite some time. It's been very much on our mind that we can provide a lot of assistance to the Guaido government when he assumes power to try to get the Venezuelan [sic] out of the ditch that Maduro has put it in." Then he claimed that there are 25,000 Cuban troops in Venezuela.
This prompted Sean Hannity of Fox News (greatly admired by Trump) to announce that "Maduro is backed by Russia. It [sic] is backed by Iran, Hezbollah. The terrorist group funded by Iran has been training government forces in Venezuela now for years. Cuba is providing 20,000 troops to protect Maduro from his own people."
Hannity didn't lose the opportunity to include Iran in his tirade because it is always important to make such links, as it prepares ordinary Americans for the day when the Pentagon takes military action against the Security State's target of the moment. Should Venezuela collapse under US pressure, the way will be open to get on with achieving the main mission bombing, rocketing and destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose very name is spine-shivering to all God-fearing Christian and Jewish people.
It looks as if it won't be long before this happens, because on 1 May (two days before telephoning President Putin) Trump told Fox News that Venezuela is "an incredible mess... The place is so bad and so dangerous... so something is going to have to be done." When asked what Washington's options could be, he replied "Well, some of them I don't even like to mention to you because they are pretty tough. A lot of things will be going on over the next week and sooner than that. We will see what happens."
So we can take it that no matter how resurgent President Maduro appeared, following the failed 1 May coup attempt by US-supported Juan Guaido, he is destined for overthrow and death. It could be another case of " We came; We saw; He died", as when Libya's president was murdered in 2011 after eight months of aerial bombardment by the US and its allies.
Then it will be the turn of Iran where, as pointed out by Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation, Washington "continues to use economic sanctions to target the Iranian people with impoverishment and death as a way of hopefully effecting another regime change within the country."