Another Coup

The Unites States has initiated another coup. Yesterday on the streets of Caracas freshly-minted opposition leader Juan Guaidó appointed himself president of Venezuela. The White House promptly recognized the 35-year-old Guaidó as the legitimate president. The actual legitimate president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, responded by giving U.S. diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.

The U.S. State Department proclaims that it is not going anywhere. Maduro has said that the utilities to the U.S. embassy will be shut off. The U.S. has threatened a military intervention.

The reporting in The New York Times is an embarrassment, little more than cheerleading for yet another bloody civil war. Yesterday's "Who Is Juan Guaidó? Venezuela’s Young Opposition Leader," by Ana Vanessa Herrero and CIA asset Nicholas Casey, introduced Guaidó without answering the question in its title. You have to read Colonel Cassad, who is translated and re-posted by Niqnaq, to learn that Guaidó lives in Washington, D.C. He is basically an employee of the State Department.

We do learn from The Times story that Guaidó is a puppet of jailed opposition chief Leopoldo López.

In the latest dispatch ("After U.S. Backs Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s Leader, Maduro Cuts Ties," by Ana Vanessa Herrero), The Times manages this faint praise:

The opposition’s new leader, Mr. Guaidó, is an industrial engineer little known at home or abroad until this month, when he was sworn in as president of the National Assembly. His appointment reinvigorated that opposition-dominated legislative body, which had become ineffectual and deeply unpopular in recent years.

Moon of Alabama believes the coup will likely be a bust:

The military, which the U.S. already secretly tried to instigate stage a coup, is unlikely to do so. It does well under the socialists and has no interest in changing that. The U.S. also tried to incite Brazil and Columbia to invade their neighbor. But neither country is capable of doing such. The U.S. itself is also unlikely to invade. At the United Nation Venezuela has Russia's and China's support.

Like in 2017 we can expect several weeks of violent protests in Caracas, during which tens or hundreds of police and protester may die. There will also be a lot of howling from the U.S. aligned media. But unless there is some massive change in the political and power configuration, the demonstrations are likely to petter out.

Has the Trump administration a consistent game plan to achieve such a change in the balance of power? I for one doubt that.

China and Russia have made large investments in Chavista Venezuela. The U.S. has large investments in Venezuela pre-Chavez. Peace and tranquility are not in Venezuela's future. Its future looks a lot like Libya's or Syria's.