In Venezuela, It’s All About The Oil

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Here we go again — the United States of America beating up on weaker nations in order to capture their oil for itself. The overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 (conducted with the enthusiastic support of the UK) was about kneecapping an alleged socialist, Mohammad Mosaddegh, but one of the reason he was considered so dangerous was because he posed a threat to US access to Iranian oil.

Fast forward a few decades and we have Poppy Bush coming to the aid of the aggressively undemocratic rulers of Kuwait in order, once again, to promote free access to that country’s abundant oil reserves. Then came President BushLeague, who puffed out his chest and hollered about “yellow cake” and “weapons of mass destruction,” but his real interest was in preserving American access to Iraqi oil reserves.

Sharp eyed readers will note that Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait are all in the same part of the world. Their natural resources were created millions of years before the British carved up the Middle East to suit their convenience. Different paper nations; same pool of hydrocarbons underneath.

Bill McKibben Has A Peace Plan

The latest bit of skulduggery by the United States concerning oil happened in Venezuela this past weekend. Shortly afterward, Bill McKibben wrote on Substack, “Just Possibly It’s The Oil?”  Then he posted this graphic, which strongly suggests the answer to his question.

McKibben said, “I know how to dramatically reduce the motivation for this kind of grab, and that is to convert the planet off oil as fast as possible. Oil is unique in being extremely valuable, extremely dense, and hence relatively easy to hoard and control, and extremely concentrated in a few places around the world.

“It is a curse to those places…..and with the exception of Canada, ask yourself how well they’ve been governed. And it is a curse to the planet because of the climate crisis, obviously, but also because anything worth this much money will inevitably destabilize international relations.”

Solar Energy Is The Anti-Oil

McKibben, to his credit, does not engage in hand wringing. Instead, he asks this question: “What if we could, simply by supporting an environmentally and economically sound transition to clean energy, remove the reason for the fighting? I don’t know how to stop the bully from beating people up for their lunch money, but what if lunch was free and no one was carrying lunch money?” He added:

It’s going to be hard to figure out how to fight wars over sunshine.” Indeed. McKibben suggests the lowly solar panel could well be the peace sign for the current times. “Every one that goes up incrementally reduces the attractiveness of the oil that underlies so much conflict and tyranny. We should…..work to push out the kind of energy that can’t be hoarded or controlled.

A nation that builds its prosperity on oil makes itself a target. A nation that depends on imported oil to survive makes itself a vassal. A nation — like China — that rapidly builds out its own supply of energy from the sun — energy that can’t be embargoed or effectively attacked, energy that by its nature is decentralized, energy so spread out that no particular bit of it is all that valuable — is a nation that can go its own way.

America is, by any definition, a rogue nation this morning. It does what it wants, without effective constraint by anyone. It, in the image of its leader, is a bizarrely destructive and absurdly oversized toddler, unable to reason beyond its own wants and impulses. We should try to teach it some manners, but we should also childproof the planet.

The US As Schoolyard Bully

The analogy that comes to mind is how similar the current US administration, with is collection of toadies, is to the bully Biff in the movie Back To The Future. Think of Rubio, Hegseth, Burgum, Wright, Bondi, and the rest of the MAGAlomaniacs as the wrecking crew that kowtows to Biff while he wreaks havoc on the community.

The odd thing, as Heather Cox Richardson pointed out this morning, is that the US oil companies seem less than excited about the prospect of getting back assets that were nationalized by Venezuela on January 1, 1976 and further expropriated by Hugo Chavez in 2007. She cites Ben Lefebvre, Zack Colman, and James Bikales of Politico, who reported that the  companies are leery of administration’s  plan for them to invest billions of dollars in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry.

Two sources told those journalists that while oil companies would like reimbursement for the equipment and infrastructure they left behind in Venezuela, they are unenthusiastic about the suggestion they invest heavily in rebuilding Venezuela’s destroyed petroleum industry in order to recoup their losses.

They have no idea how badly the infrastructure has decayed, and little interest in investing when it is not clear who will be running the country in the future. The administration has failed to reach out to oil executives with a long-term plan, they said. One source said “it feels very much a ‘shoot, ready, aim’ exercise.”

A Lack Of Prior Planning

That lack of preparation appears to be in keeping with the overall post-raid planning, Richardson reports. The so-called president told reporters today that administration officials were “designating various people” to “run” Venezuela, “and we’re gonna let you know who those people are.” Tonight Robbie Gramer and Juan Forero of the Wall Street Journal said the administration is “racing to assemble an interim governing structure for Venezuela” but noted that “[t]he lack of details about what comes next led some US officials to question why there was no detailed plan in place well before deposing Maduro.”

Does any of this remind you of the BushLite plan for Iraq, when he installed L. Paul Bremmer as the grand exalted poohbah and supplied him with $100 million in cash to be used as he saw fit? The whole episode smacks of a Pete Hegseth wet dream cooked up in the middle of the night with no forethought, no strategic planning, and no objective other than to prove that the US is the biggest swinging dick on the world stage.

One of the primary reasons the Veterans Administration is as large as it is relates directly to how many veterans there are who were wounded in prior military campaigns designed to secure dominion over oil reserves. None of those injuries would be necessary if the world relied on sunlight instead of oil for its primary source of energy. Best keep those VA hospitals and clinics open to serve the needs of an influx of new “clients.”

Cowboy Capers

This Keystone Kops escapade will have consequences that resonate for decades. Many are seeing this cowboy caper sending a message to China that the US will not lift a finger to protect Taiwan if Xi Jinping decides to make good on his New Year’s Day promise to reunite it with mainland China. Similarly, some see this as a signal to Vlad The Impaler that he may retake all the former Soviet socialist republics in order to further his dream of reconstituting the USSR.

Actions have consequences and it will be years before all the ramifications of this intrusion into a sovereign nation in a quest for oil are known. The general consensus is that this adventurism will mark the end of the rules based order so carefully constructed by the nations of the world after World War II. It also devalues the sacrifice made by Americans who gave their lives in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq so that America’s demented leader can feed his insatiable ego.