Trump’s intervention in Venezuela has stalled — because Caracas knows he’s bluffing
Back in January, the Trump administration launched an aggressive effort to convince the Venezuelan military that if it did not topple President Nicolás Maduro, it would be destroyed by sanctions and, perhaps, a U.S. invasion. The rhetoric succeeded in alarming American leftists, who loudly denounced the coming coup, and Russia, which dispatched two planeloads of military advisers and equipment to stiffen the regime’s defenses.
The problem here is not the Russians and their mostly for-show intervention. More important is the corruption of senior military leaders and the malign influence of the thousands of Cuban advisers embedded in the chain of command.
Venezuelans who support the opposition are growing skeptical. “They think that if they tweet hard enough the government will get scared and run away,” said one. “It’s not going to happen.”
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