I was interviewed by David Karalvanov at bTV (Bulgaria) on the US-Venezuela confrontation under Trump and Maduro (01Dec). David used excerpts for a documentary and kindly gave me the full video here. An outline of the five questions and answers is below here.
Three Asides: (i) In a recent CNN interview I spoke about other Trump geo-economic/geostrategic rationales. and mentioned this Venezuelan opposition’s long unwillingness to organize or allow a domestic popular movements to forcibly restore democracy from below. See: “Why Trump wants a Venezuelan oil boom …“). (ii) I recall vividly how Trump and co., in his first term, easily misled a naively dependent Venezuelan opposition, which in turn misled the country’s suffering population into believing the USA was preparing to forcibly liberate them. This was deeply corrosive to advancing any self-reliant domestic anti-Maduro movement. In the end, with Bolton, the Trump administration revealed its self-interest and incompetence as a petty putsch Bolton et al attempted to execute was embarrassingly gamed by the Venezuelan regime’s intelligence police. (iii) I’ve written for 20 years on Venezuela, Chavismo and oil, including two years as visiting professor, Universidad Central de Venezuela’s UCV/CENDES, Caracas. (I’m happy to speak to any audience in detail on Ven.-US-China-Russia-Iran-Colombian-EU-… and/or Ven. domestic matters.- TO’D)
David’s five questions and some of my answers:
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