Top US generals are likely to oppose any invasion of Venezuela sought by civilian super-hawks in the Trump administration as it would not make sense for any of their interests or priorities, veteran former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski says.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week recognized National Assembly Speaker Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela, seeking to delegitimize twice democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro.
A potential military intervention would also anger US voters, who are increasingly angry about the fiscal incompetence of their own government, Kwiatkowski suggested.
It was not clear what US naval capacity was currently in the area of Venezuela, despite recent rumors of naval deployments to this part of the southern Gulf of Mexico, Kwiatkowski noted.”The typical US resources in this part of the world are largely anti-drug forces and CIA, and this speaks to the need, if the US military were to act militarily, for the US Navy,” she said.
The United States was currently the world’s largest oil producer. So the only benefit to Washington of a takeover of Venezuela, as in Iraq and Iran, would be the temporary spiking of global oil prices due to uncertainty or war, Kwiatkowski commented.
“A price surge would benefit both Russia and the United States, and in the case of Citgo control, it would be complicated for Washington to try and either pay Venezuelan debt and keep Citgo out of Russian hands, or try and violate a past agreement via the political action of a newly installed leader,” she said.
Kwiatkowski expressed doubts that enough diplomatic work had been done to ensure the United States would have much regional diplomatic cover to proceed for long in a Venezuelan coup and/or intervention.
“I suspect it would take months for the military to mobilize the troops needed, and that many in the military would slow-roll the idea of any kind of invasion,” she said.
Nevertheless, such an invasion could be integrated with troop draw-downs Trump has promised in South Asia and the Middle East, Kwiatkowski pointed out.
“Historically when the US military is forced to draw down in one part of the world (Syria, Iraq Afghanistan), it often seems that the troops never fully redeploy, but rather deploy to a new front,” she said.
The heart of US military and diplomatic policy remains securing the petrodollar, and ensuring a US ability to leverage global oil prices, Kwiatkowski recalled.
But, “This policy doesn’t work anymore, and is no longer popular, making it a hard sell for any President,” she said.
Trump might attempt to spin a war in Venezuela to help gain funds for his land border wall with Mexico, Kwiatkowski suggested.
Also, “The Democratic Party leadership has consistently supported war in general and maintaining the petrodollar specifically. Destroying what’s left of Venezuela and confronting the Russians over Citgo could be a real bipartisan issue if we are not careful,” she said.
On Monday, the US Treasury Department announced new measures to cut off Maduro’s financial resources and redirect them to Guaido, including freezing $7 billion worth of assets of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA in US jurisdictions.