It's naive to compare Iraq much to Venezuela.
Iraq has Shia vs Sunni split. Regional power players like Saudi and Iran backing different sides. The Kurds. Death to America an easy rallying call to band together different Islamic jihadist bands. International fighters flooding Iraq from all over the place over lawless borders. Thousands of ex Iraqi army personnel unemployed and with a grudge. Plus it was a full blown US (and later UN) invasion. From very early on a large number of Iraqis wanted the invaders gone. All easy stuff to stir up the hate, anger, and bloodshed.
This time the US is just going to leave it's navy armada with all it's super high tech weaponry parked in the Caribbean, as an enormous close threat. No boots on the ground if they can avoid it. It's all been a matter of days. Plain ridiculous to expect any improvement so soon.
Trump is now going to go into deal mode, which he loves. New El Presidente Rodriguez will continue outwardly to be all anti American outrage, but apparently she's a pragmatist, so she will be willing to cut some sort of deal.
The Americans hold the cards. They can almost completely cut off the Caracas regime's hard currency supply lines, and if they do the country will be impossible for the regime to govern. They won't be able to pay off their protectors (many of them Cubans it seems) any more. A hungry cohort of generals will just do an internal coup and surrender to the Yankees.
Trump will also cut some sort of deal with the US oil companies getting them to eventually invest in the infrastructure repair, if slower than he desires. He'll cut a deal with the Chinese to re begin oil supply to them. Maybe a deal with the Ruskies so they stop arming the Venezuelan military.
Venezuela is in America's backyard. There will be 100s of Latinos in the CIA, and dozens of native Venezuelans with intimate knowledge of the important players in the regime. Who to keep and who to lock up, ie expendable.
I had hoped that the lawfully elected Machado/Gonzalez ticket would soon govern in Venezuela. But true democracy will have to wait, as you risk then militias/ex secret police close to the corrupt regime heading into the Amazon and countryside to start up a civil war. Trump and Rubio know all this.
This is as good as it will be for now. But the average Venezuelan won't care much. They want to see food in the shops, medicines in the hospitals, rebuilding of crumbling infrastructure, reunions with their loved ones, no Yankee soldiers on their streets and Maduro in jail. True democracy can wait.
Iraq has Shia vs Sunni split. Regional power players like Saudi and Iran backing different sides. The Kurds. Death to America an easy rallying call to band together different Islamic jihadist bands. International fighters flooding Iraq from all over the place over lawless borders. Thousands of ex Iraqi army personnel unemployed and with a grudge. Plus it was a full blown US (and later UN) invasion. From very early on a large number of Iraqis wanted the invaders gone. All easy stuff to stir up the hate, anger, and bloodshed.
This time the US is just going to leave it's navy armada with all it's super high tech weaponry parked in the Caribbean, as an enormous close threat. No boots on the ground if they can avoid it. It's all been a matter of days. Plain ridiculous to expect any improvement so soon.
Trump is now going to go into deal mode, which he loves. New El Presidente Rodriguez will continue outwardly to be all anti American outrage, but apparently she's a pragmatist, so she will be willing to cut some sort of deal.
The Americans hold the cards. They can almost completely cut off the Caracas regime's hard currency supply lines, and if they do the country will be impossible for the regime to govern. They won't be able to pay off their protectors (many of them Cubans it seems) any more. A hungry cohort of generals will just do an internal coup and surrender to the Yankees.
Trump will also cut some sort of deal with the US oil companies getting them to eventually invest in the infrastructure repair, if slower than he desires. He'll cut a deal with the Chinese to re begin oil supply to them. Maybe a deal with the Ruskies so they stop arming the Venezuelan military.
Venezuela is in America's backyard. There will be 100s of Latinos in the CIA, and dozens of native Venezuelans with intimate knowledge of the important players in the regime. Who to keep and who to lock up, ie expendable.
I had hoped that the lawfully elected Machado/Gonzalez ticket would soon govern in Venezuela. But true democracy will have to wait, as you risk then militias/ex secret police close to the corrupt regime heading into the Amazon and countryside to start up a civil war. Trump and Rubio know all this.
This is as good as it will be for now. But the average Venezuelan won't care much. They want to see food in the shops, medicines in the hospitals, rebuilding of crumbling infrastructure, reunions with their loved ones, no Yankee soldiers on their streets and Maduro in jail. True democracy can wait.