Washington Making War against Venezuela Unlikely: US Analyst

“…the actual probability of someone making war against Venezuela flies in the face of logic, you know, and in fact, I would say the probability is very low because of that. But the probability of success I would say is close to zero because this would be the one thing that could unify the Venezuelan people,” Don Debar, from New York, told Tasnim.

Following is the full text of the interview.

Tasnim: US officials have threatened Venezuela with military action. They have said that they would take action against the Venezuelan government militarily. I would like to know your take on this and what do you think about the latest developments in Venezuela?

Debar: I remember when the first US invasion of Iraq took place in late 1990, I think actually January of 1991 is when the actual incursion began, and there was a political condition I guess at the time called “Vietnam Syndrome”, which was sort of public exhaustion over the long war in Vietnam and sort of an antiwar sentiment that had come to reside in the American population. It was acknowledged by just about everyone. And there were efforts made by the military industrial complex, the government, you know, all of those over the course of even Jimmy Carter's presidency, but certainly Ronald Reagan's and then George Bush's to do away with this. We had the little Grenada invasion and some things that were intended to try to change the public's mind or bring closure to the Vietnam Syndrome, etc. And we were told that Iraq would be a very quick and easy victory that the reason Vietnam, you know, was so difficult was because it was a jungle and because Iraq was desert, we can see all the bad guys and pick them off right away and so it would be over very quickly. Well, in fact, here we are 28 years, 29 years later, still involved in Iraq and now they are talking about going into Venezuela, which of course has what jungle all over the place. That's the first part. The second part is the US clearly has been trying to decapitate the regime by pulling the military. They want a military coup in essence to ratify this you know the guy, everyone calls random dude, that's the one who wants to be president. And they've had no success whatsoever. But you might want to go back to 2002 in April of 2002 when in fact there was a military coup. And what happened was that the people of Venezuela themselves undid it and the military swung around seeing that many of them were going to end up on the wrong end of a rope, you know, Nuremberg style. So I don't think there's going to be any success along those lines. But again, the polling data from Venezuela right now is something like 85% of the people. In other words, even half of the opposition is strongly opposed to US military intervention or direct intervention by any other party from outside the country. So the actual probability of someone making war against Venezuela flies in the face of logic, you know, and in fact, I would say the probability is very low because of that. But the probability of success I would say is close to zero because this would be the one thing that could unify the Venezuelan people. That would be repelling an outsider.

Tasnim: Russia has warned that the United States is using humanitarian aid to instigate a dangerous provocation in Venezuela by arming the country's opposition. Now, another Russian official recently said that Moscow will do all it can to prevent any potential intervention in Venezuela by the US. What do you think about this? Do you believe that an all-out war would take place between these two superpowers?

Debar: Well, first of all, it's important to note that this Venezuela policy from the US is being driven right now by Elliott Abrams and John Bolton, who were both around for the contra war that was started against Nicaragua. And in fact, they've already started threatening Nicaragua. They tried something last year there. And one of the criminal convictions that Abrams had to be pardoned from, had to do with smuggling military weaponry under the guise of humanitarian aid and the crime was that he lied about it to Congress. But, in other words, these two both have a record of doing exactly what the Russians have said, you know, these guys might be trying to do with this humanitarian aid. There is another dimension to that of course; they know if I starve your house for five months, your family and everyone, and then I send someone down there with steak for lunch today. Well, you know, whoever that person is that shows up there is going to be the new hero of the household regardless of anything else because they're solving this major crisis that the family faces and very few people will go to the trouble of analyzing how they got where they are and just try to solve their critical problem. So there is the political aspect to US embargo that trashes the economy and then trying to appoint this guy, random dude as we call them, Guaido, as an agent of humanitarian relief.

But when Russia talks about doing everything that they can to protect from a US military intervention, it's worth noting that President Putin mentioned specifically the October 1962 crisis, that's known here as the Cuban missile crisis, not that is a specific threat but he did point out that, that behavior leads to that kind of crisis and he also has made a couple of material demonstrations they sent, you know, very small, low key visit, but a specific visit from two Russian bombers a few weeks back. And there have been Russian humanitarian aid delivered at the very time that this big incident about the delivery of American aid was all over the media. So I don't think any sane world leader, and I don't necessarily include anyone in the US in that category, but you know, Xi, Putin, others will risk nuclear war. However, there were some things that are very important interests that have to be protected or you end up risking nuclear war down the road. And one of those is Russia's right to be able to trade with and make alliances with anyone anywhere in the world. And the people of Venezuela and the government of Venezuela want to make an alliance with the Russian Federation. You know, the Russian Federation has got to be able to stand up to what the United States says “get out of the way or we're going to blow you up” and it seems that the Russian leadership has learned that lesson. This led to the announcement a couple of years back between China and Russia of a strategic partnership. They meant it for exactly these kinds of cases.

So, you know, I think there are no wild and crazy threats coming from Russia, but a clear statement of their interest in the outcome of this and also their more general interest in the rule of law among international relations. And so, you know, they have a military and they can project power when they need to.