Washington May Be Inching Toward ‘Regime Change’ in Syria, Iran and Venezuela

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Venezuela
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who was a strong advocate for regime change in Libya and is also pushing for regime change in Syria, recently introduced a bill in the Senate that seeks to boost anti-regime voices in Venezuela, where Socialist Party President Nicolas Maduro is clinging to power while thousands of people protest in the streets.

The bill, called the Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act of 2017, would give $10 million to Venezuela for humanitarian assistance and allocate another $10 million for “democracy promotion” in Venezuela, while imposing additional sanctions.

This week, a helicopter dropped grenades on the Supreme Court building in Caracas — the same court whose members the U.S. Treasury Department just sanctioned.

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A member of Maduro’s Cabinet called the attack part of a “coup plot” and said it had involved four grenades of “Colombian origin” fired from a stolen aircraft.

The U.S. has had a long involvement in the country. In 2002, two officials in the Bush administration — Elliot Abrams and Otto Reich — helped organize and plan a coup that succeeded in forcing out Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But Chavez returned, and the Bolivarian socialist republic kept rolling along, with Nicolas Maduro becoming president after Chavez’s death.

Venezuela is a founding member of OPEC and is thought to have the largest reserves of oil in the world. Chavez nationalized the country’s oil industry, limiting the role of multinational oil companies in the country.[lz_pagination]