We left off with
“Every writer loves a plot-twist,” and an interesting question arises with Delcy’s cooperation. Was Trump’s objective regime change, democratic transition, or a government in Caracas willing to make an oil agreement he thirsted after?
Looking at his history, the first two seem uninteresting to this man, while the third is a ball he has teed up more than once.
In what may be an overuse of metaphor, there are many more cards on the table, and a dealer with more to gain than ordinary morals would allow.
And so, away we go.
Venezuelan oil isn’t simply about American gasoline. Like the Hormuz cutoff, it’s not entirely about what it is, but where it goes. For years, China’s principal supplier of oil, and oil products, has been Venezuela.
Having a conversation about who-controls-what is useless without understanding the principal world powers involved.
Simplified?
The United States wants control, and China doesn’t want the U.S. to have its hands around the neck of its strategic needs.
Any diplomat involved in the conversation must know that.
And, strangely enough, this diplomatic impasse comes at the worst possible time for Trump, as he’s made a great show of kow-towing to President Xi. For his part, Xi has given back precious little.
A man of great depth, and the nearly unsurpassed power of a communist dictator, Xi is unmoved by flattery. China, in his mind, finds no use in flattery, depending instead on a 5,000 year history.
When a world leader susceptible to flattery, comes up against another without that handicap, it’s not much of a horse-race.
Our president, in many strategic conversations with nations such as Ukraine and Iran, has made a point of referring to who has ‘cards on the table.’ At the moment, Trump has none, China has many.
For any with eyes to look, China has been willing to sit back, while our president digs himself deeper and deeper holes, in both foreign policy and unwarranted military attacks. The question at hand is deepest of all.
Does a legitimate strategic interest authorize everything being done in its name?
Not by the hair of your chinny, chin, chin…particularly, with no cards to hold.
The United States relies upon China for its supply of rare earths that power our defense and military systems, including precision-guided munitions, fifth-generation fighter aircraft, satellites, and next-generation naval vessels.
Chinese support is vital in negotiations with both Ukraine and Iran.
China is our 3rd largest trading partner and, while the U.S. exports more services than it imports from China, the goods sector overwhelmingly dominates the trade imbalance.
The United States cannot maintain (or even hope to improve) its international stature without a healthy and friendly China.
At the moment, China is an electric-fence, and our president dares not piss up against it.
Nor is the Pentagon a proper candidate for sticking an oil trade conflict in China’s eye.
We might follow the money in this new endeavor, and determine who profits and who pays.
We have already met the Venezuelan billionaire, of questionable repute, who is our president’s nominee for squeezing the juice from what actors make the playlist. They are many and diverse, but there’s plenty of oil to grease these wheels.
It takes a particular brand of courage among the players, each of whom must be both willing and able to face a Grand Jury, because you just know in your bones that one will be called.
Pete Hegseth, you’ve staggered and diverted your way through many a congressional hearing. But are you up for a hearing-with-teeth, the kind that offers a jail term for perjury?
And Mr. Betancourt, you seem to be hip-deep in go-betweening a highly illegal kidnapping of Venezuela’s president. You have an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion at the moment. Would you risk that (and jail) to dip your hip deeper?
And Delcy Rodríguez, interim Venezuelan president. You know what ‘interim’ means. If Maduro returns (as is likely, sent back by a New York judge) then your interim is down the toilet, where jail may or may not await.
Finally, there’s the Wizard behind the curtain, the Master Enabler, our American president. When things go wrong for him, as they often do, he’s willing to throw any and all involved under the bus. He also hungers for slices of any pies that cross the Oval Office.
If you think this coat-of-many-colors private enterprise violates Pentagon rules and regulations, you are wrong.
Within its hallowed and spider-webbed corridors, the Pentagon is cagey about who has offices there (matters of national security, you know), but acknowledges many defense contractors and private for-profit suppliers are there, tucked away within its. 3.7 million square feet of offices.
Lots of shoes among those feet, all of them legal. And yet, it begs a question.
If the Pentagon can help remove the head of any foreign government it chooses, and another Pentagon Department can then acquire a financial interest connected with that country’s natural resources, what precedent has our president just created?
This is a president of unprecedented precedents.
Ever since the United Nations was created, the U.S. has argued that it does not fight wars of conquest. We claim never to invade countries to acquire territory, nor do we seize their natural resources as compensation. Whatever America’s considerable foreign-policy sins, that has been an important distinction in the postwar international system.
Then, our president stands before the United Nations General Assembly, and boldly claims, “To the victor belong the spoils.”
What are we to make of that?
Has he just created a business model for unwarranted wars?
And, if so, will it survive a Grand Jury?
More importantly, will it survive the Constitution and the most delicate jury of them all, that of the American public?