Analysis

Double-Barreled US Agenda of Venezuela Strikes: Regime Change & Resource Grab - Analyst

The ugly truth is that strikes on Venezuela fit the standard US playbook: if America cannot get its hands on a country’s resources, it’s perfectly willing to bomb it back a decade, Angelo Giuliano, a Hong Kong-based political and financial analyst, tells Sputnik.
Sputnik
Angelo Giuliano assesses as “shocking and credible” the US claim of having captured President Nicholas Maduro, adding that it proves America seeks to pull off a regime-change.
It’s really a two-for-one play, he elaborates, since alongside destroying the most critical military infrastructure, US strikes reportedly targeted Venezuela’s oil refineries, port infrastructure, and airports.
For US, the “best-case scenario would be regime change and complete appropriation of Venezuela's natural resources, and if it cannot pull that off, it will go for a complete destruction of the Venezuelan economy,” the pundit stresses.
The US strikes were launched at night to achieve maximum “surprise effect,” possibly to engage a small crack army force, Giuliano speculates.
The entire operation was likely needed to validate the huge costs of the massive military buildup in the Caribbean. So now, its “mission accomplished.”
The strikes could also be a sign that a “more aggressive fringe of the US administration is taking over more control,” even though aggressive plans regarding Venezuela had been blueprinted long ago.
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