Pompeo and Bolton Seek To Drag Trump White House into Making Venezuela the Next ‘Libya’

May 1, 2019 (EIRNS)—Channeling Hillary Clinton’s disastrous role in the Libyan debacle, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today called up Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to threaten conflict with Russia over Venezuela, and announced to U.S. media that the United States will deploy military troops to Venezuela, if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is not ousted—a big step beyond the usual “all options are on the table.”

Pompeo’s actions go in tandem with National Security Advisor John Bolton’s deliberate steps to drive Venezuela closer, not to a new government, but to final chaotic breakdown. If they are not stopped, they will create a “Libya” in the Western Hemisphere, with global strategic implications, by baiting U.S. military intervention as terrorism spreads across the region and the current flood of refugees out of Venezuela becomes a tidal wave.

This lunatic British policy is meant to sink the Trump administration as much as it is designed to blow up the region.

Pompeo blamed Russia for the failure of Bolton’s Venezuelan “President” Juan Guaidó’s promised military rebellion yesterday against Maduro. Pompeo asserted that Maduro had been ready to board a plane to flee to Cuba, until “Russia” stopped him from leaving, a preposterous claim which he repeated everywhere, and which Russia, of course, denied.

Pompeo today called Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, and, according to the State Department, stressed “that the intervention by Russia and Cuba is destabilizing for Venezuela, and for the U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship.” Lavrov replied that “Washington’s intervention in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state and threats against its administration are the rudest violation of international law,” the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.

“Military action is possible. If that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do,” Pompeo told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo today. “We’d prefer a peaceful transition of government there ... but the President has made clear in the event that there comes a moment—and we’ll all have to make decisions about when that moment is, and the President will ultimately have to make that decision—he is prepared to do that, if that’s what’s required.”

There are serious Americans who are warning against these nuts. Retired Col. Pat Lang slammed the “duo” in his Sic Semper Tyrannis blog today.

“The attempt to portray the Communist government of Venezuela as a Russian or Chinese bridgehead in the Western Hemisphere is just absurd,” he wrote, and “there is no evidence that First in his Class [Pompeo] and the ‘Stache’ [Bolton] have persuaded the Commander-in-Chief to commit U.S. military support in any way to the Venezuelan project of regime change.”