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?
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?
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.
So again: conceivably sure, but the details matter. The details we have right now do not look very promising IMO.
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?
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.
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.
I think the Venezuelans will work it out, despite Trump's ineptitude.
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.
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".
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.
Maduro in prison is an improvement from Maduro still in power. Accept it as a tiny win and move on.
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?
I'd push the delete button for every unelected dictator on the planet if I could. Repeatedly. It's morally offensive not to.
So what you say may happen, but not if "it" (being the plan stated by the orchestrator and executor of said move) is successful.
You're making a pretty good case for high risk.
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.
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".