Trump Will Prioritize the Coup in Venezuela for Domestic Politics Alone

Judging from the main write-up in The New York Times, Katie Rogers' "Pence, in Colombia to Meet Guaidó, Announces New Venezuela Sanctions," the Trump administration's right-wing coup push is floundering.

Yes, U.S. special forces are being positioned in Puerto Rico and Colombia, but allies -- Brazil, Spain, Peru, to name several -- are getting cold feet when it comes to the military option.

Juan Guaidó, the self-appointed interim president of Venezuela and public face of the U.S.-backed coup, has abruptly tossed away his commitment to non-violence and requested a foreign military invasion of his homeland. As Rogers reports,

In their discussions, Mr. Pence said, Mr. Guaidó had reiterated a request for military support — a possibility that President Trump has called “an option” — but on Monday the vice president did not make any commitments. Instead, Mr. Pence told reporters that he had assured the opposition leader that “all options” remain, but that “we hope for a peaceful transition.”

Worse yet for the coup was Macro Rubio's incendiary tweet calling for Maduro to go the way of Gaddafi. A blood-curdling squeal of a war-pig, so plain, so obscene, it could not be ignored even in the pages of coup-friendly "newspaper of record":

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, has been a vocal supporter of the effort to oust Mr. Maduro, and he drew criticism on Sunday when he appeared to compare the Venezuelan president to Muammar el-Qaddafi, the deposed Libyan ruler who was dragged through the streets and killed during a violent Arab Spring uprising.

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democratic of Connecticut, accused the administration of using the delivery of humanitarian aid as a tool to bring about “regime change.”

“Venezuela didn’t just lurch into humanitarian crisis,” Mr. Murphy wrote on Twitter. “The aid is being sent there now as part of a regime change strategy. Many are hoping that it will be the match that lights a civil war against Maduro.”

It's good to see some opposition to the coup voiced in the U.S. Senate. Outside of Tulsi Gabbard and Ilhan Omar in the U.S. House of Representatives, I hadn't heard anything but war drums coming from congress.

Prominent democratic socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been atrocious. (Look at Jacobin. There is nothing on the coup visible on its homepage.) They're trying to finesse their pro-coup stance by saying they are anti-authoritarian. The rationale is the same one used by Democrats who backed the invasion of Iraq. The excuse there was that Saddam Hussein was a butcher. But did Saddam Hussein butcher more Iraqis than lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion?

And what about Libya? Are Libyans better off today after Gaddafi's ouster? The country is going on nine years of civil war. Italy is on one side; France, the other. The goal? The largest oil reserves of any African nation.

In a sense Marco Rubio has done the people of Venezuela a great favor. He has reminded them what is in store if Maduro is ousted violently.

With Pence's ratcheting up sanctions -- "targeting assets of four Venezuelan governors allied with Mr. Maduro, . . . atop crippling American sanctions issued late last month against the state oil company, known as PDVSA" -- and granting an additional $56 million to the Venezuelan opposition, the U.S. is going to keep tightening the screws.

For domestic political reasons alone Trump will keep his foot on the pedal. It allows him to rail against socialism while spotlighting just how feckless and unwilling to rock the war machine AOC and Bernie are.