US strategy of 'regime change' is over - Gabbard

RT

Venezuela earlier this year accused the US president of plotting a coup, while Trump himself has floated the idea of overthrowing Iran's leadership.

US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard has acknowledged Washington's history of regime change but said it ended under President Donald Trump - despite his recent remarks on Iran and accusations about Venezuela.

The US has long faced criticism for pursuing policies aimed at overthrowing governments under the banner of promoting democracy or protecting national interests - from Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 to backing "color revolutions" such as Ukraine's 2014 Maidan coup. Speaking at the 21st Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Saturday, Gabbard claimed that, unlike its predecessors, the Trump administration prioritizes diplomacy and mutual deals over coups.

"The old Washington way of thinking is something we hope is in the rearview mirror and something that has held us back for too long: for decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building. It is a 'one-size-fits-all approach' of toppling regimes, imposing US governance models, and intervening in 'poorly understood' conflicts, only to walk away with more enemies than allies."

Gabbard said the strategy drained trillions of US taxpayer dollars, cost countless lives, and fueled new security threats, but noted that Trump was elected "to put an end to this."

"And from day one, he has showed a very different way to conduct foreign policy, one that is pragmatic, that is deal-driven. This is what President Trump's America First policy looks like in action - building peace through diplomacy."

Since his inauguration in early 2025, Trump has repeatedly portrayed himself as a global peacemaker, boasting of brokering international deals and saying he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Critics, however, argue his pressure campaigns on Venezuela and Iran mirror Washington's regime-change playbook.

Caracas last month accused the US of plotting a coup against President Nicolas Maduro under the guise of its ongoing anti-drug campaign off the country's coast. Trump himself hinted at "regime change" in Iran after US strikes in June, posting on truth Social: "Why wouldn't there be a Regime change???" Tehran, which has long accused Washington of trying to destabilize it through sanctions and covert actions, denounced the strikes as proof of renewed efforts to undermine its government.

Cold Warrior Elliott Abrams Returns to Battle in Venezuela

Al-Jazeera

Shortly after right-wing figure Juan Guaido auto-proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela in January - to the immediate applause of US President Donald Trump - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the appointment of a special envoy to "help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country", that is to get rid of legitimate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro once and for all.

The envoy is neo-con extraordinaire Elliott Abrams, praised by Pompeo as a "seasoned, principled, and tough-minded foreign policy veteran", whose "passion for the rights and liberties of all peoples makes him a perfect fit and a valuable and timely addition" to the State Department team.

"Veteran", at least, is an accurate description. Abrams indeed boasts a long career of shady political exploits in Latin America undertaken on behalf of the American government.

US 'mercenaries'

 

While serving in the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Abrams was a star of that Cold War period known as the Iran-Contra affair, during which the US illegally sold weapons to Iran and funnelled the proceeds to right-wing Contra forces busily terrorising Nicaragua.

Abrams was even convicted for his role in the affair, but was later pardoned by George HW Bush.

In her war memoir Blood on the Border, US scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz recalls Abrams's lofty prediction that "when history is written the Contras will be folk heroes".

But the Contras were responsible for setting off a decade-long war that killed an estimated 50,000 Nicaraguans, and thus understandably aren't recalled as "folk heroes" by anyone but a hardcore group of delusional neocons.

Read more

Maduro Moves Venezuela’s Oil Firm European Office To Moscow

oilprice

Nicolas Maduro has ordered an office in Europe of Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA to be moved to Moscow, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said on Friday after meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Russian capital.
 
Russia is one of Maduro’s key supporters in the political power struggle in the Latin American country sitting on top of the world’s largest oil reserves, while the U.S. and many European nations have recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president.

Russia has stood by Maduro for years and has poured billions of U.S. dollars in Venezuela in the form of loans and oil investments, even when all other Venezuelan allies—including China—have shown reluctance to continue lending money to Maduro’s regime.

 

After meeting with Russia’s Lavron today, Venezuela’s Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said that “President Nicolas Maduro instructed the Lisbon branch of PDVSA to close this office and relocate the office to Moscow.” 

Read more

The Planning of a Coup against Venezuela: Chile, September 11, 1973: The Ingredients of a Military Coup. The Imposition of a Neoliberal Agenda

Michel Chossoudovsky
Global Research

The main objective of the US-supported military coup in Chile was to impose the neoliberal economic agenda. “Regime change” was enforced through a covert military intelligence operation. Sweeping macro-economic reforms (including privatization, price liberalization and the freeze of wages) were implemented in early October 1973.

Author’s Introduction

***

More than forty-five years ago on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military led by General Augusto Pinochet, crushed the democratically elected Unidad Popular government of Salvador Allende.

The objective was to replace a progressive, democratically elected government by a brutal military dictatorship.

The military coup was supported by the CIA. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a direct role in the military plot.   

Is Washington’s ongoing initiative directed against Venezuela modelled on Chile?

In early 1970s, in a note to the CIA in relation to Chile, Henry Kissinger recommended “Make the economy scream.” Visibly the same concept has been applied to Venezuela, with advanced techniques of financial warfare, which were not available in the 1970s.

Today it’s Mike Pompeo and John Bolton who are calling the shots, in tandem with the CIA.

Bolton has gone far beyond the Nixon-Kissinger agenda formulated at the height of the Cold War. Bolton refers to “The Troika of Tyranny”. The US sponsored coup against Venezuela is also directed against Cuba. And from Washington’s standpoint “after Venezuela, Cuba is next”.

“The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—has finally met its match. In Venezuela, the United States is acting against the dictator Maduro, who uses the same oppressive tactics that have been employed in Cuba for decades.”  (John Bolton)

Read more

The results of US 'regime change' in Latin America & the Caribbean

The Unz Review

As the US strives to overthrow the democratic and independent Venezuelan government, the historical record regarding the short, middle and long-term consequences are mixed.

We will proceed to examine the consequences and impact of US intervention in Venezuela over the past half century.

We will then turn to examine the success and failure of US 'regime changes' throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Venezuela: Results and Perspectives 1950-2019

During the post WWII decade, the US, working through the CIA and the Pentagon, brought to power authoritarian client regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and several other countries.

In the case of Venezuela, the US backed a near decade long military dictatorship (Perez Jimenez ) roughly between 1951-58. The dictatorship was overthrown in 1958 and replaced by a left-center coalition during a brief interim period. Subsequently, the US reshuffled its policy, and embraced and promoted center-right regimes led by social and christian democrats which alternated rule for nearly forty years.

In the 1990's US client regimes riddled with corruption and facing a deepening socio-economic crises were voted out of power and replaced by the independent, anti-imperialist government led by President Chavez.

The free and democratic election of President Chavez withstood and defeated several US led 'regime changes' over the following two decades.

Following the election of President Maduro, under US direction,Washington mounted the political machinery for a new regime change. Washington launched, in full throttle, a coup by the winter of 2019.

 The record of US intervention in Venezuela is mixed: a middle term military coup lasted less than a decade; US directed electoral regimes were in power for forty years; its replacement by an elected anti-imperialist populist government has been in power for nearly 20 years. A virulent US directed coup is underfoot today.

The Venezuela experience with 'regime change' speaks to US capacity to consummate long-term control if it can reshuffle its power base from a military dictatorship into an electoral regime, financed through the pillage of oil, backed by a reliable military and 'legitimated' by alternating client political parties which accept submission to Washington.

US client regimes are ruled by oligarchic elites, with little entrepreneurial capacity, living off of state rents (oil revenues).

Tied closely to the US, the ruling elites are unable to secure popular loyalty. Client regimes depend on the military strength of the Pentagon -but that is also their weakness. 


Read more

Former UN Expert: US Sanctions in Venezuela Largely Responsible for Crisis, Possible “Crime Against Humanity”

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News

“What’s at stake is the enormous, enormous natural resources of Venezuela. And I sense that if Venezuela had no natural resources no one would give a damn about Chavez or Maduro or anybody else there.” 

— Former UN official Alfred de Zayas

 

LONDON — In a comprehensive interview with the U.K.-based outlet The Independent published on Sunday, former special UN rapporteur Alfred de Zayas claimed that crippling U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela for the past several years are illegal and amount to “economic warfare” against the Bolivarian Republic. De Zayas also asserted that the U.S. sanctions targeting Venezuela could amount to “crimes against humanity” under international law, share much of the responsibility for the current economic crisis in Venezuela, and have resulted in needless deaths of Venezuelans as a result. De Zayas, who completed his term at the UN less than a year ago, has been critical of the U.S. sanctions regimen — which began in earnest in 2015 when former President Barack Obama declared Venezuela a “national security threat” without evidence. Since then, President Donald Trump has intensified sanctions and has also openly mulled a military intervention in the country, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. 

Notably, this is not the first time that de Zayas has spoken up about the dangerous consequences of U.S. sanctions. Last September, de Zayas presented an explosive report he had helped compile to the UN Human Rights Council, showing that “economic warfare,” and sanctions in particular, practiced by the U.S. and its allies have greatly exacerbated Venezuela’s economic crisis. The U.S. had withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council a few months prior to the release of de Zaya’s report, citing the body’s alleged bias against Israel.

Though de Zayas also blamed the Venezuelan government, led by President Nicolás Maduro, for overdependence on oil, poor governance and corruption, his report called for the International Criminal Court to investigate economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Venezuela as a possible crime against humanity per Article 7 of the Rome Statute.
In his report, which de Zayas claims has been largely ignored by the UN since its release, the former UN rapporteur wrote:

Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns….Twenty-first-century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees.”

De Zayas went on to the tell The Independent that “sanctions kill” and discussed how these measures disproportionately affect the poorest of society and often cause deaths from the resulting shortages in food, medicine and other essential goods. He also told The Independent that these tactics aimed at a country’s most vulnerable civilians were intended to coerce economic chaos and regime change in Venezuela. 

Read more

The Making of Juan Guaidó: How The US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela's Coup Leader

Dan Cohen & Max Blumenthal
Gray Zone

Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela's constitution.

But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world's largest oil reserves.

Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a "credible rival" to Maduro with a "refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward." The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking "restoration of democracy" and the Wall Street Journal declared him "a new democratic leader." Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.  

While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government's elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela's socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrating his worthiness in Washington's halls of power.

"Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance," Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told the Grayzone. "It's the logic of a laboratory - Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying."

Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet, Mision Verdad, agreed: "Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles," Sequera remarked to the Grayzone, "He's a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program."

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela's most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.
"'These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls," wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela's leading pollster. According to Leon, Guaidó's party remains isolated because the majority of the population "does not want war. 'What they want is a solution.'"

But this is precisely why he Guaidó was selected by Washington: he is not expected to lead Venezuela towards to democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment. 

Read more

If The World Understood Sovereignty, It Could End All Our Problems

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com/

My own Australia has of course joined the chorus of US lackeys who are refusing to recognize Venezuela’s only legitimate and elected government, recognizing instead the presidency of some guy named Juan who decided to name himself Venezuela’s president with the blessing of the United States government. A statement from our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marise Payne, reads as follows:

Australia recognises and supports the President of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, in assuming the position of interim president, in accordance with the Venezuelan constitution and until elections are held. Australia calls for a transition to democracy in Venezuela as soon as possible.

Australia supported the Lima Group’s early call for Nicolas Maduro to refrain from assuming the presidency on 10 January, relayed through our non-resident Ambassador to Venezuela.

We now urge all parties to work constructively towards a peaceful resolution of the situation, including a return to democracy, respect for the rule of law and upholding of human rights of the Venezuelan people.

It was only a matter of time before such a statement was issued. Australia has long served as Washington’s basement gimp, marching to the beat of US foreign policy on all issues no matter how idiotic or dangerous for as far back as I can remember. My country has seamlessly transitioned from British colony to US military/intelligence asset without ever once raising its head toward anything resembling national sovereignty except once briefly in the mid-seventies, which saw a CIA/MI6 coup oust our elected leadership here. This coup was preceded by our then-Prime Minister’s discovery that Australian intelligence officers had been operating as proxies of the CIA to overthrow the Allende government in Chile in yet another sovereignty-violating coup, one which has often been compared to what we’re seeing in Venezuela today.

Read more

See also: Top 5 Dumbest Arguments Defending Trump’s Venezuela Interventionism

Neo-Con John Bolton Openly Admits He Wants Maduro Out, American Oil Companies In

Zero Hedge 

 

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro might be forgiven for thinking there's a foreign-backed conspiracy against him in repeatedly accusing the US of engineering a "coup" and waging "economic war" against his regime, especially given that US advisers are now quite openly admitting this is precisely the case. In fact just after Maduro's contested reelection and swearing in to a second six-year term, his foreign minister Jorge Arreaza told Democracy Now that "Nothing that the opposition does is without the permission or authorization of the State Department... They say, 'We have to make consultations with the embassy. We have to make consultations with the Dept of State.'"

 

While that broad brush assertion could remain over-simplistic, White House officials aren't making it any easier for the opposition in terms of Maduro painting it as tainted by a foreign hand. As a prime example, Trump's national security advisor John Bolton recently admitted to Fox Business that the US has a "lot at stake" amidst the ongoing Venezuela crisis given the fact that it has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Bolton told host Trish Regan:

 

It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.

 

Read more

 

See also: Bank of England Refused to Return $1.2bn in Gold to Venezuela – Reports

Bank of England refused to return $1.2bn in gold to Venezuela – reports

RT

Britain rejected Venezuela’s request to withdraw $1.2bn in gold stored in the UK, according to reports. It was enough for the self-declared and US-backed ‘president’, Juan Guaido, to support the alleged move.

The Bank of England blocked Venezuela’s attempts to retrieve $1.2 billion worth of gold stored as the nation’s foreign reserves in Britain, sources told Bloomberg on Friday.

According to the media outlet, officials in Caracas have for weeks been trying to withdraw the gold, with Calixto Ortega, the head of Venezuela’s central bank, traveling to London in mid-December to seek access to the nation’s assets.

The talks were “unsuccessful,” as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the national security advisor to President Donald Trump, John Bolton, pressured their British counterparts to freeze the Venezuelan assets, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

By some estimates, Venezuela holds more than $8 billion in foreign reserves. According to earlier reports, the amount of Venezuelan gold kept in the Bank of England doubled in recent months, growing from 14 to 31 tons.

The South American nation has reportedly experienced problems in extracting its own gold from the Bank of England in the past. Bankers in Britain were allegedly concerned that Venezuelan officials would sell the state-owned gold “for personal gain.”

The Bank of England, along with press officials for Pompeo and Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, declined to comment.

Despite the fact that the story was not confirmed, the alleged move of the British bank was swiftly praised by the self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ of Venezuela. “The process of protecting the assets of Venezuela has begun,” Juan Guaido tweeted.

“We will not allow more abuse and theft of money intended for food, medicine and the future of our children.”

Read more

US-Led Efforts to Overthrow Maduro Spurred by Business Interests, Not Democracy

Eva Barlett
In Gaza

“Maduro is not a dictator. He is the elected head of a government confronting a genuine national emergency engineered by hostile foreign powers. Measures taken by the government to defend its citizens against the determination of the United States to impose on Venezuela policies which cater to the interests of corporate America at Venezuelans’ expense are wholly legitimate; they represent the actions of a democracy against a US-led international tyranny.
It is important to remember that Maduro’s government, like Chavez’s, has sought to put the interests of ordinary Venezuelans ahead of those of US investors. As a result, it has provoked Washington’s enmity.”

what's left

January 24, 2019
By Stephen Gowans

The US-led and coordinated intervention to overthrow Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro by recognizing Juan Guaidó, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly as the interim president, has nothing whatever to do with restoring democracy in Venezuela (which was never overturned) and everything to do with promoting US business interests.

Washington’s imperial arrogance in effectively appointing Guaidó as president, attempting to go over the heads of Venezuelans—who alone have the right to decide who their leaders are—is motivated by the same concerns that have motivated other US interventions around the world: toppling governments that put their citizens’ interests above those of US investors.

That Washington has a propensity to engage in destabilization operations against leftwing governments is hardly a secret. From 1898 to 2004, the US government undertook 41 successful regime change interventions in Latin America, an average of one every two-and-a-half years. And that

Read more

El Petro: Venezuela launches first cryptocurrency backed by oil, gas, diamonds & gold

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge

Venezuela has officially launched what its President Nicolas Maduro claims is a first state-backed oil-backed cryptocurrency, El Petro, which analysts and experts see as nothing but a scam and another effort to skirt sanctions and mask the inability to overhaul the ailing domestic economy.

Over the past months, Maduro has been touting a new plan for economic recovery, which includes a new policy on gasoline pricing that would raise Venezuela's ultra-cheap gas pricesfor the first time in two decades. The plan to ease the severe economic crisis also featured a devaluation of the currency and pegging the new bolivars to the Petro.

Maduro claims that the Petro is strengthening his recently announced economic overhaul plan and will "revolutionize" the global crypto economy with a new form of trade, finance, and monetary exchange.

The official public sale of the Petro - which Venezuela say is backed by oil, natural gas, diamonds, and gold-will begin on November 5, Maduro has said.

Read more

Haley, Pence Convey US Message on Venezuela: Only Election Worth Holding is One that Results in Regime Change

Eliot Gabriel
Mint Press News

As aggressive neoconservatives increasingly take the helm of the United States foreign policy establishment, Washington’s appetite for “regime change” has only grown.
 
The reinvigorated mood for intervening in the internal affairs of nations who don’t adhere to Washington’s dictates was on full display Tuesday as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued the demand that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro step down from office and refrain from holding elections May 20 that he is widely expected to win.

“The systematic oppression of the Venezuelan people has become an active threat to the entire region. For the safety and security of all peoples in Latin America, it is time for Maduro to go,” Haley told a conference of the neoliberal Council of the Americas at the State Department.

Following the speech, Haley pontificated about how the U.S. and its junior regional partners must redouble their efforts to force the Venezuelan leader’s abdication from office:

I am not sure how we will make that happen but I know that we can’t stop … We have to continue to isolate Maduro until he gives in.”

Broadening her fire to include the other leftist governments of Latin America, Haley described the progressive nationalist and socialist models of Cuba and Nicaragua as proven “to be a complete and total failure,” requiring that U.S.-aligned governments work with Washington to ensure that “the last few surviving authoritarians” not be permitted to “drag down the hemisphere.”

Haley had shown no such concerns about authoritarianism in February when she visited the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, to drum up support for the scandalous re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez and to thank him for his decision to move the Honduran Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. For around two months, mass demonstrations and unrest in response to fraud allegations blanketed the Central American nation. All the while, Washington backed the right-wing, pro-U.S. incumbent to the hilt as he suspended civilian law and carried out a campaign of what local human rights monitors described as blatant “state terrorism.” 

Read more

Nicolás Maduro: Protests by rich are U.S. attempt to steal Venezuela's oil and subvert our democracy

The Guardian

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Venezuela's president claims the Obama administration is fomenting unrest with the aim of provoking a Ukraine-style 'slow-motion' coup

Venezuela's president has accused the US of using continuing street protests to attempt a "slow-motion" Ukraine-style coup against his government and "get their hands on Venezuelan oil".

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Nicolás Maduro, elected last year after the death of Hugo Chávez, said what he described as a "revolt of the rich" would fail because the country's "Bolivarian revolution" was more deeply rooted than when it had seen off an abortive US-backed coup against Chávez in 2002.

Venezuela, estimated to have the world's largest oil reserves, has faced continuous violent street protests - focused on inflation, shortages and crime - since the beginning of February, after opposition leaders launched a campaign to oust Maduro and his socialist government under the slogan of "the exit".

"They are trying to sell to the world the idea that the protests are some of sort of Arab spring," he said. "But in Venezuela, we have already had our spring: our revolution that opened the door to the 21st century".

Read more

Venezuela’s Opposition Stages Nationwide Protests

ABC News

Thousands of opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took to the streets on Saturday to express outrage over the country’s deepening economic crisis, seeking to rebuild momentum sapped after a string of electoral defeats.

The nationwide day of protests was the first called by opposition leader Henrique Capriles since he lost by a thin margin to Maduro in April’s snap election following the death of Hugo Chavez and came just two weeks before key mayoral elections.

Reflecting a certain fatigue that besets both sides in this deeply polarized nation, only about 5,000 people gathered at Plaza Venezuela in Caracas to march with Capriles — a far cry from the masses that flooded Caracas’s avenues during his final rally during the presidential campaign. Still, turnout was greater than recent government-organized acts.

Government intimidation, internal power struggles and virtually no access to televised media have disheartened many in the opposition, leaving it in a weaker position to challenge Maduro even as the president’s approval ratings have declined.

Read more