Just Because They're Crazy Does Not Mean They Are Not Winning

There is a tendency in alternative space, and it is tempting, to reframe losses as, in some subtle way, wins. It can help you cope with the downswings in the battle for a more equitable, just and peaceful world, and there have been plenty of those recently.

We’ve seen this play out over Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, where the optimists amongst us have assured us that, though bloodied, Hamas is still surviving triumphantly in its underground passageways; that Hezbelloh is regrouping in Lebanon; that the complete mess of Syria post-Assad (or Libya, post-Gadaffi, or Iraq post-Hussein) should somehow be comforting. And if that isn’t enough, then we can see how mighty Russia, in its resilient defiance against a quarter-century of NATO provocation in Ukraine and its amazing succession of technological breakthroughs in weaponry (dwarf nuclear reactor technology for the Burevestnik and Poseidon; non-nuclear nuclear-equivalent destructive power in the case of the Oreshnik; hypersonic missiles in the case of the Kinzhal and Zircon), or how mighty China, in its noble defense of its territorial rights to Taiwan and leadership of benevelont infrastructural investments and non-dollar trade throughout the Global South, have finally countered the increasingly brazen, reckless and, yes, stupid and desperate, latter-day US imperialists and their vassals in Europe and elsewhere.

Venezuela is instructive in this instance. On the face of it, what is it about really? The US produces over 13 million barrels per day of oil, so why does it want more of the stuff (Venezuela produces only around one million a day), especially if greater volumes push down prices and lower profit margins for US producers? And wont it take years (ten, some analysts advise) to rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry? What has happened, really, if the “invasion” has simply removed a leader of whom Washington disapproves but leaves the governing machinery intact? And wont the US become ever so much more hated in places like Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, and even by the people of the US itself? Are we looking at an endless succession of Vietnam quagmires? And doesn’t reckless confrontation with Russia and China inevitably escalate tension to the point of a very real possibility of a nuclear World War Three and the effective end of the human species?

Well, it may look crazy, reckless, even satanic, but I regret to say that doesn’t mean it is not going to work for “them” (the Western corporate plutocrats and oligarchs in general, the Trump family and its hangers-on more specifically) and against “us.”

Let’s at least explore at the possible gains for the Trump administration here. First of all, the US has directly commandeered the oil industry of Venezuela. Trump is claiming an immediate benefit of large amounts of oil to be directly shipped to Gulf refineries. Team Trump say they are asserting “complete control” of Venezuelan oil supplies. They say that are going to oversee the sale of Venezuelan oil worldwide, and that they are going to approve sales of oil only if they serve US interest (!). Even more astonishingly, Venezuela is going to have to buy US products with the profits that it earns from these sales. I am not an expert on British imperialism (only its victim, being Irish), but I wonder if this even manages to exceed the extortionate, rapacious seizure of global wealth by the British (fat lot of good that it did, ultimately, for most of the British people, looking at the sad and stale state of the British polity and economy today).

Now, of course, we dont yet know exactly how President Rodriguez is going to react. She started defiant, then she later moderated along the lines of “we’ll cooperate so long as it is within international law,” - which is almost amusing given that absolutely nothing of what is going on accords with international law. But she has an extraordinarily difficult if not impossible balancing act to maintain. For the moment, as I argued yesterday, we are seeing, in place of the usual neocon regime-change shenanigans, something ever weirder, which is regime capture.

And this, so far, is welcome news to the Trump administration, which has not hesitated to exploit this singular moment of gross abuse of a sovereign state to threaten some very vulnerable neighbors. These include Cuba, which was dependent on heavily discounted Venezuelan oil in return for medical, military and other services, and whose capital, Havana, has lately had to tolerate power cuts of ten or more hours a day. Before Cuba can hope for any meaningful respite from Russia and China, if this comes at all, it is clinging desperately to supplies of oil from Mexico, which is another country whose leadership Trump is trying to sabotage on fake pretexts of drug cartels (some of which, like Cartel of the Suns, were established by the CIA when it was using a drug supply line to the US to support its illegal flow of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua and which more recently have been amplified by US complicity in the flow of guns to Mexico).

Misery in Cuba, and the possible fall of the Cuban government, will be a personal victory for Marc Rubio, a child of Cuban immigrants to Florida, long-time host to fanatical anti-Cuban, pro-imperial US policies. Colombia is another case. Its President Petro is due to stand down anyway in a few months’ time, since he is allowed only one term in office but, up until now, it has been expected that the next presidential candidate (Cepeda) to succeed him will be from Petro’s party (Historic Pact).

Trumpian control of Venezuela gives the US a further perch from which to try to push the coming elections in Colombia in a US-friendly direction (the greater likelihood of a return to guerrilla warfare throughout the north of South America, notwithstanding).

Of particular significance, and it is something that not many, if any, commentators have so far chosen to remark on, is the situation in Guyana and its vast Essequibo oil region, accounting for two-thirds of Guyana itself. Since the 1960s (1962 to be precise), Venezuela has reignited claims to the Essequibo region which rest on the disputed arbitration in 1899 under British imperial control of the borders between Venezuela and Guyana. This arbitration Venezuela deems null and void. Especially since major offshore oil discoveries from 2023 by ExxonMobil, the Maduro government has pressed its case vigorously, and the case is still being adjudicated by the ICJ (to which it was referred in 2018). In 2023, the Venezuelan government held a non-binding referendum to annex Essequibo, and Maduro signed a resolution to incororate the territory.

The US has supported the Guyanese regime against Venezuela, and now, with its capture of the Venezuelan government, has put paid to Venezuelan ambitions on Essequibo. Note that the quality of the oil in Guyana is better overall than that of Venezuela: it is much lighter, easier to access and therefore much cheaper to extract. At the moment, even if its reserves are much less than those of Venezuela, Guyana is producing as many millions of barrels of oil a day as does Venezuela and will likely exceed Venezuela in 2026. Venezuelan oil is much thicker, polluted and much more expensive, perhaps ten or more times expensive to extract. This is why US oil companies are less than ecstatic about Trump’s exhortations to them to invest billions in renovating the Venezuelan oil industry. So these poor, put-upon oil giants are demanding financial and other guarantees for whatever investments they make. In the short-term however, it is also relevant that many oil refineries along the US Gulf coast are equipped for handling thick oil (for which there is specific demand in some industries) such as that from Venezuela and in recent years this supply has weakened so that the refineries stand to benefit economically from an upthrust in the availability of supplies of heavy Venezuelan crude.

The US has also asserted control over tanker trade in oil from Venezuela in the case of tankers that have been sanctioned by the US, leading to at least four tanker seizures in recent days. Since some of the tankers in question constitute part of the so-called “shadow fleet” used by Russia to sidestep sanctions on its own oil trade and to get oil to its clients in Asia (notably India and China), the US is now blockading a significant part of Russian oil trade machinery.

The fact that in the case of Bella 1, Russia had reportedly sent a submarine to protect the tanker but that then the tanker was successfully boarded and hijacked by the US is a major humilitation for Russia, further proof, if proof was needed, of Russia’s extreme caution in going to its own and others’ defense anywhere that is not eastern Ukraine. China too is humiliated. Dependent for 75% of its oil needs on foreign supplies, China particularly values its oil imports from Iran and Venezuela and both are now extremely vulnerable. More to the point, its oil purchases with these countries are non-dollar, so that now China is being compelled to do more business in dollars, which forces it to prop up the US empire and help the US solve its debt crisis. Yes, of course, China will first of all look to Russia to replenish what it is no longer being able to count on from Iran and from Venezuela, but there are doubts as to whether Russia can actually handle a significant additional demand of this scale.

Venezuelan oil for the US further improves the bargaining position of the US with respect to whatever oil it does still continue to import even though, of course, the US is a major energy supplier to world markets (including, increasingly, to Europe which, in collusion with the US, is shooting itself in the foot by denying itself access to cheap or much cheaper Russian pipeline or LNG in favor of expensive US supplies). Together with supplies from Brazil (which produces about four million barrels a day, and Argentina which produces about 800,000, and Guyana, which produces about a million), the addition of Venezuelan oil means that the US will be collaborating with - if not dictating to - non-OPEC oil production countries, further reducing its dependence on Saudi Arabia (a BRICS member, currently resuming, we should take note, its bombing of southern Yemen) which produces about nine million barrels a day.

All this, in the graceful language of US official thuggery, helps “extend” (i.e. greatly increases the pressure on) the BRICS countries and the potential of the BRICS to bring about a more equitable world through the annihilation of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Increasingly, the real power of the BRICS is being seen to center in Beijing and in Moscow. But they are not looking so convincing as potentially competent adversaries of the US hegemon as they did. As India tries to navigate between Washington and, particularly, Russia (which continues to be a major oil supplier to India, Trump’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding), the other BRICS countries are looking rather less capable and committed than they have been for some time. Brazil, the enormous, dominating economy of South America, seems incapable of confronting Washington. Iran, with one of the most important oil reserves in the world (producing only four million barrels a day, same as Brazil) now seems highly vulnerable to a further US-Israeli strike, perhaps leading ultimately to regime collapse and it is difficult to sustain faith in Russian or Chinese determination to prevent that from happening.

Like I said, just because they’re stupid doesn’t mean they’re losing.