Didn’t expect this. Guess enough of the military wasn’t loyal or competent. Won’t work out well for the US in the longer run, but here we go again. Hell of a precedent to set. If I were Mexico’s President I’d be very worried. Hope she can trust enough of her military.

A lot will depend on if a new leader not approved by the US steps up, ideally a military man. Don’t know enough about Venezuela to have an opinion on this. Decapitation strikes don’t work on real movements (see Ansar-Allah.)

However, more likely a “unity government” will be announced, the US oil majors will be let back in and so on. It’ll be interesting to see if an insurgency springs up or not. If I were China (I’m not, and they tend to be more passive than I think is wise) I’d happily supply any insurgency that does happen.

Anyway, discuss here.

Update: US President #DonaldTrump said in a press conference that the US is going to “run #Venezuela.” Trump added that the #US will run the country until it decides a “safe, proper, and judicious” transition is in place. He said that the US does not want to be involved with “having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”

Update 2: Could be that the kidnapping did nothing but replace Maduro with someone more competent. Alternatively Delcy, whom the US has acknowledged as head of state, lead the negotiations to sell out Maduro. We’ll see.