{"id":160388,"date":"2025-12-24T06:40:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=160388"},"modified":"2025-12-25T09:16:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:16:43","slug":"us-boxes-itself-into-a-venezuelan-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2025\/12\/24\/us-boxes-itself-into-a-venezuelan-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"US paints itself into a Venezuelan corner"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 5 – Venezuela: follow-through or dial-down?<\/strong><\/a> – I provided in single paragraph summaries the arguments for and against the likelihood of American piracy in the Caribbean escalating into full-on war to effect regime change in Caracas. I concluded that sooner or later, Southern Spear, <\/em>the eye-wateringly costly<\/strong><\/a> armada assembled off Venezuela’s coastline, will be brought home. That Trump will, with that effortless capacity of his to spin success from the most self evident of abject failures, declare the whole thing a splendid victory for The Greatest Nation on Earth, and further evidence of the genius of its 47th president.<\/p>\n

I nevertheless tempered that prediction:<\/p>\n

Me, I\u2019d still bet on dial-down. Just not with my shirt.<\/h6>\n

Yesterday the Duran duo, Alexander Mercouris the guru in residence as Alex Christoforou kept time, revisited the question. To that end they were joined by a Patrick Lancaster somewhere on Columbia’s border with Venezuela – the former country scarcely less threatened than the latter – and an Angelo Giuliano in Caracas. I apologise for the fifty minute duration, due in no small part to Alexander’s love of his own voice – shame that; he has much to offer – and consequent inability to desist from padding out the simplest of questions.<\/p>\n

Could have been done and dusted in half an hour tops, but still well worth tuning in.<\/p>\n