Everything Trump says is a lie, so take that into account. Reports say they're not interested.

The editor euphemistically says the operation's strategic interests are "fluid."

You admit in your section that Trump seems only interested in pillaging Venezuelan oil reserves & he has no plan for the country's success. So why you think there's some lesson for him to learn IDK. He doesn't care.

A bit of a flaw in Matt's hypothesis here. Trump either soaked himself in leftist policy critiques and perverted them to achieve a larger goal. Or, some oil companies gave him a billion dollars to do this. Tough to tell what the truth is here.

Trump's approach to foreign policy:

Maybe centuries of Western imperialism have been the product of a time loop anomaly after an Occupy meme showed up in 15th century Lisbon.

Pundits like Frum use "obviously" and "clearly" when their only evidence is their own conceit.

In offing Maduro but leaving the rest of the regime untouched, Trump has effectively just forced the mafia state to switch spokespeople.

Cue Delcy. Who, unlike Maduro, is often considered to be a very sophisticated political operator and in many ways has been the key regime functionary since 2013

*If* this was just a coup intended to put Delcy in power, it may functionally be pretext for the U.S. to "switch sides" from the Venezuelan people (represented by exiled opposition leaders) to the Venezuelan dictatorship (now represented by Rodriguez).

Parsing Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth statements, it sounds a lot like "we're going to drop all demands for democracy/elections, recognize Rodriguez in perpetuity, drop all sanctions, send lots of investment and technical assistance, and buy any oil Venezuela wants to sell."

Here's the key passage from NYT.

Miller: I'm looking for ways to use WOT precedents to attack Latinos. Can we bomb Mexico?

Adults: Well, that would undermine efforts against drug trafficking.

CIA: How about fake boat bombings?

Miller: Death! I must have death!!!