As U.S. warships carrying cruise missiles and marines headed toward Venezuela's coast this week, supporters of Nicolás Maduro warned that a cowardly imperialist plot for an Iraq-style invasion was underway.
"No one will lay hands on this land!" Maduro thundered, calling on patriots to help repel the alleged regime change operation by joining his Bolivarian militia.
Donald Trump's allies posted inflammatory messages on social media, warning the Venezuelan autocrat that the end was near. His days are seriously numbered, proclaimed Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, urging Maduro to buy a one-way ticket to Moscow.
Another Trump supporter, Congressman Carlos Giménez, celebrated the largest military presence we've ever had off the coast of Venezuela and told Maduro to accept it: his time is up!
The naval buildup and bellicose rhetoric could suggest that Latin America is on the verge of an extraordinary foreign intervention, the likes of which the region hasn't seen since U.S. troops invaded Panama to overthrow its dictator, Manuel Noriega, in 1989. On Thursday, Cuba's Foreign Ministry accused the United States of seeking to turn the Caribbean Sea into a war zone.
But Venezuela experts and former US diplomats are skeptical that Caracas is about to suffer a Baghdad-style shock and awe attack.
All of this is a performance on both sides, said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
No one in their right mind thinks that 4,500 people can invade a country with mountains, jungle, and multiple urban centers, Sabatini added, referring to the number of U.S. military personnel deployed in the Caribbean Sea as part of an amphibious group theoretically capable of launching an attack from the sea.
James Story, the top U.S. diplomat for Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, was equally dubious, suspecting that the mobilization was more a show of force than a use of force.
Story believed many Venezuelans were so enraged by Maduro's destruction of the country's economy and the theft of last year's presidential election that they wouldn't necessarily oppose him being deposed by a foreign force. But the belief that somehow this particular group of ships and the U.S. government foreshadow a military engagement, I don't think, added Story, who thought not enough assets were being deployed for a military strike.
Would he be able to fire missiles, for example, and carry out a surgical strike against Fuerte Tiuna [the military base where Maduro is believed to live]? Yes, he could do that. But you could also do it without such an ostentatious show of force. So the idea of an invasion, I don't think that's true, said Story, who also believed Trump was generally against meddling militarily in other countries' affairs.
