Here’s another grand strategy coming out of some corner or other in London, for how to use the United States to accomplish the eternal goal of the British: “destroy Russia”—and destroy the United States in the process. It goes like this:
Get U.S. President Donald Trump to take out Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Then grab Venezuela’s oil fields, raise its oil production, flood international markets with cheap Venezuelan oil, and thereby drive down the price of oil internationally. That, ladies and gentlemen, can bring down Vladimir Putin! And as a bonus, sink Saudi Arabia’s modernization drive along with sinking Putin.
The scheme was floated by British financial journalist Matthew Lynn on Nov. 8 in the pages of The Telegraph, one of the media in which he peddles his offerings. The headline asserted: “Venezuela Could Blow Up the Oil Market and Destroy Putin.” Lynn baldly packages the scheme as a sell-job for President Trump, and it is as dumb as EIR's summary indicates.
“An anticipated U.S. military strike against Caracas would drastically re-shape the global economy,” Lynn proclaimed. “In the most optimistic scenario, American air and sea power—perhaps with some covert ground forces—combines with domestic opposition to force Maduro from power, allowing [Maria Corina] Machado to lead a peaceful democratic revolution….
“The Caribbean country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world with an estimated 303 billion barrels of the stuff under the ground…. If the regime is changed … with the right backing from an American government determined to justify its intervention in the country’s internal affairs, [the oil industry] could recover very quickly…. The price [per barrel of oil] will definitely go below $50 and perhaps as low as $30 … for the rest of this decade as Venezuelan production ramps up.”
