It has been on and off on Spanish news for quite some time, normally with Repsol execs telling us about the benefits of democracy in Venezuela.
I am inclined to think this is more a two (or even three or more) birds with one stone action. This obviously includes the distraction and the potential to nix programmes and oversight during shutdown.
However, the U.S., and numerous allies, have had avaricious eyes on Venezuelan oil for quite some time.
So much time, in fact, that the current Nobel Peace Prize winner has been advocating for "democracy" since at least 2005, which is when she had a chat with Dubya in the Oval Office. Then, the grants from the National Endowment for Democracy did start to flow. While the initial grant was only $53,000 dollars, that doesn't exclude other funding bodies being involved. The NED has been described as the "white gloves of the CIA". This is somewhat backed by Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing the NED, and who was quoted in a 1991 interview with The Washington Post saying, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." This statement is frequently cited by critics as a direct acknowledgement of the NED taking over former CIA functions.
As Machado doesn't have any issues talking to or praising fascist leaders, including Trump, Bolsonaro, and Milei. This has led to her being seen as the "Bolsonaro of Venezuela", given her anti-communist, populist, confrontational, and anti-establishment rhetoric. Certainly, Maduro paints her in this light, but this view extends far beyond Maduro. Effectively, her view aligns with Trump, Bolsonaro, and Milei, which I think we can assume isn't pluralistic and democratic.
I think that it would not be illogical to assume the Mann Doctrine remains in full effect, and "democracy" is the Trojan Horse for regime change.
In that light, the attacks on narco-boats become a provocation. Certainly, Colombia and Venezuela see it this way, with Colombia having involved themselves by stating that some killed on the boats attacked by Trump were actually their citizens. The U.S. denied this, stating the claims were "baseless and reprehensible," before anonymous confirmation.
Effectively, this looks like a provocation, especially against Venezuela, where narco-boats will be attacked until there is a suitable point of escalation to justify military action, et voilà!, the largest oil reserves on the planet, with around 303.8 billion barrels proven, comes into play.
There are issues with Venezuelan crude being sour, and requiring more investment for large scale extraction and profit maximisation, but the proven reserves are still huge. The upper estimate is around 500 billion barrels. A lot of variables come into play, but crudely, this is a dollar value of between $2.25 Trillion on a pessimistic outlook and $25 Trillion for an optimistic outlook.
So, Machado gets a free bump, the "democracy everywhere" argument gets put back in play, everyone got a free laugh at Trump, yet it all still aligns with over 20 years of U.S. foreign policy, which is, "it is unfortunate that Venezuela elected a terrible, corrupt, undemocratic ruler who runs a socialist petro- and narco-state. We will help with democracy. They fix elections and everything. We will help them."
303.8 billion barrels of, albeit sour, crude and the ability to damage OPEC never even entered their minds.
I am sure that the states of the former "Seven Sisters" would not object to more control being back in their hands.
Move along, nothing to see.
