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Comment by estearum | Hacker News Reader

> If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?

Uhh, no?

My opinion is that US interventions are incredibly risky. There have been numerous successes. There have also been numerous failures. Both have required immense resources and focus from us.

Some interventions are worth the risk, and others are not. I have not seen any compelling rationale for the risk-reward of this particular intervention, and have very low hopes for the follow through, which makes the risk-reward calculus even worse.

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Agree.

If I wear a blindfold, cross a highway and am not hit by a car, am I willing to concede that crossing the highway blindfolded is safe?

You don't think Venezuela having the largest oils reserves on the planet and it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China make the possible reward fairly significant from a US standpoint?

Sure it's conceivable. Can you go a level deeper on your analysis?

Are you suggesting that cutting off oil flow to those nations will be advantageous to us? Is this like... tomorrow? During a potential armed conflict? When?

By what specific mechanism does the US assert "control" over the oil? POTUS just now said it's via a ground occupation "until transition of power." What's the transition plan?

Not cutting off, but it's enough that the US increases oil supply which lowers the prices to significantly hurt Russia and Iran. And then you have China which is the main consumer of Venezuelan oil so you get another point of leverage.

Also probably helps to ensure the petro dollar is here to stay for longer.

Obviously this is a very shallow analysis, and there's definitely significant risks, but I do think it's obvious that it has large potential upsides.

Well... POTUS just said that the plan is to sell large amounts of Venezuelan oil to China and Russia.

So again: conceivably sure, but the details matter. The details we have right now do not look very promising IMO.

It's not shallow, it is gullible. Of course Trump has an angle otherwise he wouldn't have done this. We can speculate about what the angle is but there is absolutely no way that he did this for the good of the Venezuelan population.

Edit: So, that took only 8 minutes, the other shoe just dropped, it was about the oil after all. Where do I collect my check?

Oh yeah, I'm certain the intent behind this wasn't for the sake of the Venezuelan population, but that in itself doesn't mean it won't result in a better outcome for the population (but also not saying that it will)

The thing I occasionally say about Trump is: "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

We ("the opposition") can't get into the frame where we say that everything Trump does is wrong. It's not frequent, but sometimes - yes even for totally wrong reasons - he does things which are probably right. Our identity needs to be more than just "the opposite of what Trump does", otherwise the Trumpists will frame all debates around issues that make us look crazy, rather than the issues that demonstrate blatant grift and criminality.

If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing. Let's go back to talking about the clear and obviously terrible things Trump does. Don't let them change the subject.

> If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing.

Agree with your overall sentiment but this is just a ridiculous position to hold at this point. History is absolutely full of horrible people being toppled just for more horrible people to take their place. There is literally no evidence whatsoever of a plan for post-Maduro Venezuela. At all!

They're either acting completely clueless for the cameras for some unknown reason, or this is very likely going to go really badly.

Venezuela has already been going really badly, by nearly any quantitative metric of "how going". This is a country that - a couple decades ago - was a rare success story of democracy and prosperity in Latin America.

I think the Venezuelans will work it out, despite Trump's ineptitude.

I see this sentiment around here a lot and I just have to laugh.

Things going badly does not mean — even at all — that things cannot go much much worse.

Libya was bad and got worse

Syria was bad and got worse

Afghanistan was bad and got worse

Sudan was bad and got worse

In fact, nearly every really bad situation was already bad, and then it got worse.

I can appreciate that but taken to its conclusion it's a recipe for paralysis and complacency. It always could be worse, so let's just let sit here and let shit happen?

Unlike all those places you mention, Venezuela has a democratic tradition which was only recently derailed. This isn't some middle eastern theocratic monarchy. It's "get back on track" not "find new tracks where none existed before".

No, shit can always get worse so act carefully and with a plan.

I and many others are asking for evidence of such a plan. The US administration has denied the existence of such a plan.

Maybe those factors you mention will turn out to be relevant or even determinative, and maybe not. I suspect in absence of an actual plan, the mere tradition of democracy will not suffice.

The Trump administration is incompetent to manage a pre-school, let alone world affairs. We're not going to get a plan. The best we can hope for is an occasional random steps vaguely in the right direction.

Maduro in prison is an improvement from Maduro still in power. Accept it as a tiny win and move on.

Frankly insane position to hold ~24 hours after the events and with the information currently available.

You are aware you're allowed to say, "it'll take some time for this to shake out sufficiently to understand whether it's a tiny win, a huge win, net-neutral, or regionally catastrophic," right?

The future is always uncertain. Sometimes you just have to take the rare chances afforded. "Maduro suddenly recognizes the value of democracy and transitions power to Gonzáles" wasn't on the table.

I'd push the delete button for every unelected dictator on the planet if I could. Repeatedly. It's morally offensive not to.

In the short term this will likely decrease oil supply and drive up oil revenue for Russia.

Venezuela supplies less than 1% of the world's oil, basically meaningless.

China is heavily dependent on oil imports and a big part of Germany's defeat in WW2 was due to difficulties obtaining oil. This move may - if successful - change the calculation over Taiwan

POTUS said his plan is to sell vast amounts of Venezuelan oil to China and Russia.

So what you say may happen, but not if "it" (being the plan stated by the orchestrator and executor of said move) is successful.

"…it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China…"

You're making a pretty good case for high risk.

You could easily say the same thing about not doing anything.

But also remember that Russia is occupied in Ukraine and couldn't even help the Assad regime which was a much closer ally, and same with Iran.

i think the argument is Venezuela can help - or hurt - Russia.

This is all about China, not Russia

> strong ally to Russia, Iran and China

It's more like (similar to other sanctioned countries) "forcibly coerced by the USA into being a ally of Russia, Iran and China by sanctions".

Since the purpose of the interventions is to get more access for US oil companies, they are always successes

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