Transcription
Welcome back. We are joined by Professor Jeffrey Saxs to discuss the US attack on Venezuela and, uh, the kidnapping of its president, uh, Maduro. So, thank you very much for coming back on the program.
>> Um, of course.
>> Yes.
>> Dramatic events.
>> Yeah, it's quite, uh, dramatic, and this, of course, was an actual unprovoked attack, an illegal attack as well. Uh, but the, the, the capture, or arrest, as the media sometimes refers to it, of the president of Venezuela has been also quite dramatic. How are you assessing the situation and, uh, what are the objectives of the United States here?
Well, clearly, this is a, a blatantly illegal act. Uh, but it's one in a long line of blatantly illegal American actions. And just in the recent days, Trump has been threatening, uh, a new country every day. He bombed Nigeria last week. He said that the US would intervene in Iran if the government acts against the protesters in a way that Trump doesn't like. He has invaded Venezuela. Uh, just, uh, recently, he, uh, created a special envoy for Greenland, uh, declaring that Greenland will be ours. Uh, so it's a threat against Europe, which, of course, Europe doesn't even acknowledge or recognize because it's so passive, uh, relative to the United States. Uh, we're, we, we are not in a constitutional order, uh, in the United States. We are in, uh, an order led by a military state. Uh, we do not obey the US Constitution. Uh, everything is by executive decree. When, uh, a congressman dared to mention the US Constitution today, Trump said, "What is he whining about? Uh, this is ridiculous." Uh, well, this is, uh, really, uh, at least what Trump has done is expose the fact that we're at the end of constitutional rule in the United States. What happens when there's a thuggish rule remains to be seen, but in my view, this makes the world extraordinarily dangerous.
Of course, we're hardly at the end of the [clears throat] story about Venezuela itself. They have arrested a president. Uh, but, uh, this is not the end of, uh, anything. Uh, the whole history of US regime change operations, which number probably around 100 such operations since the end of World War II, um, is a record of bloodshed, violence, deliberate creation of instability, uh, coups, assassinations, civil war. So, we don't know what will come next, but we know that there's been thuggery.
It's also interesting, though it's, maybe I don't have a definitive count of it, but I've not noticed any of the mainstream media in the United States even raising a question about this. The New York Times, the so-called, uh, paper of record, did not one time in recent weeks say, "Oh, it wouldn't be a good idea to brazenly attack that country." Uh, the editorial board was completely silent. As far as I can see, it remains silent. Uh, our Congress is more abundant. It's, it doesn't exist, uh, in fact, uh, in, in any operational sense. So I find all of this very dramatic, uh, and extremely worrisome, though I hasten to repeat, we're not at the end of the story by any means of what will transpire in Venezuela itself. There is a, a government in place. There is a military. There is a mobilized part of society. There's lots of guns around. Um, this is not a simple, smooth takeover by the United States, as much as Donald Trump might believe.
So, >> Yeah, that long list of, uh, only the threats being made over the past few weeks is quite extraordinary. And we see Trump getting increasingly unhinged, not just at the domestic but also at the international level. Uh, but the Europeans, though, have the leaders, I mean, of Europe, have predictably showed their obedience and offered their support, making it clear they considered Maduro illegitimate and, uh, seeking, well, essentially to back the American position on this. Um, but what does this mean for Latin America? Because in the US national security strategy, it outlined clearly that this was, well, more or less America's backyard now, and, uh, it wanted other great powers out, and the US should, uh, well, reign supreme. Is this, uh, something a warning for what's to come in other places in Latin America as well?
>> Well, first, let me say a word about Europe. Um, it's a very sad day for your country, Glenn. I think we can rename the Nobel Peace Prize is the Nobel War Prize. Uh, it was given to, uh, a person this year who called for exactly what has happened today, who called for a military strike by the United States on Venezuela. It came to pass. Uh, this is a, a tragedy for countries, governments, and institutions that once upon a time talked about international law. The European response has been pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Uh, of course, uh, everyone, every leader in Europe seems to cower, uh, to the US, to be terrified. Uh, the strongest statements were, "We hope that this will return to stability soon." Not, uh, any kind of shock of a brazen attack against the international order, against the UN Charter, against peace itself. So this is the world that we're in right now. Europe varies between complete vassalage and acquiescence to the US or its own war monitoring when it comes to Russia. Uh, there seems to be no diplomacy, no peace, and no attachment to multilateralism or to the UN Charter. You don't see it anywhere.
When it comes to Latin America, of course, Trump has been openly saying that the United States rules the Western Hemisphere. It will dictate the terms. He has said today, basically, I don't have the direct quotation because I'm halfway around the world, but I saw the wire notice that Trump said, "Well, the oil is ours." Um, this is a, a grab for Venezuelan oil. Uh, he said, "Our companies will go back in and do business in Venezuela." It, it could not be crasser or cruder. Uh, and we've been there before in this kind of world. We have had a world of sheer imperialism that it was not in any way, uh, tempered or bound by international law, and it led to two world wars and, um, unconscionable, unimaginable loss of life. So we've been, uh, in this kind of situation before. We've never been in this kind of lawlessness in the nuclear age, however. And I think that this is, uh, just extraordinarily worrisome to have an unhinged, undisciplined, uh, crude bully, absolutely lawless, absolutely disrespectful of any norms as president of the United States, and to have no counterweight whatsoever in Europe, not a voice for decency or international law. And, um, for the rest of the world, well, I suppose that, uh, Russia and China are watching. They have said this is obviously a crass violation, and they're not going to intervene in, in the Western Hemisphere. Uh, but what has happened is, uh, simply another step of completely dismantling, uh, of the institutions and lessons that we once thought we had learned from World War I and World War II and had installed, however fragile, uh, in the United Nations system and in international law. It barely exists. The UN is in the same situation today as the League of Nations was, uh, in its defunct period, uh, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Uh, it essentially is useless right now. And I'm sorry to say it because I've been working for and with the UN for 25 years, but, um, the US has disowned it, uh, is, uh, trying deliberately to destroy it, and, um, while one hoped that the rest of the world would rally to its defense, we see that Europe is silent. And, oops, our lights went out. I'm in the Himalayas right now. So I, um, but I, I don't, I don't see what is needed right now, which is the rest of the world rallying to the cause that, uh, this can't stand in this way. Maybe in the first hours, one shouldn't expect this, and maybe more will come, but it's a very, very alarming period. The US is deliberately out to rip up any semblance or shred of international law.
>> I don't know how Europe will feel when the, when the United States invades Greenland, but, but don't be surprised when it happens. Trump has announced it. He has announced it again and again, and it's very, very likely to happen. Uh, one day Trump will say, "We have a national emergency," and Greenland will be occupied, and then probably, uh, Europe will say, "Oh, thank you, thank you, US. Uh, it could have been worse." This is how things are right now. Principles, who needs them? You mentioned, um, Norwegians gave the Peace Prize to Machado, and I already see that Fox News has announced that she is the logical, uh, successor now after Maduro's fall. This is how they frame it. Uh, but of course, all this is, uh, well, this was to a large extent the purpose, I think, of giving the prize, that is to give the illegitimacy for the invasion, given that she was has been a supporter of it. Um, but, but it also, of course, was complemented by other justifications. We heard about narco-terrorism. We're told that Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, China, all of these actors are operating in Venezuela, whatever that might mean, which makes it also legitimate. Uh, and of course, Trump said that this is our oil, and we want it back. So, with all of these various different justifications, it's, uh, yeah, none of them are very convincing. And, uh, in terms of trying to put in Machado, though, as you suggested, it doesn't seem as if the US, the game isn't over yet. The idea that they can just kidnap Maduro and then Washington can elect the new leader, it doesn't seem to work this way. But do you, do you see how likely do you see the US being able to essentially break the Venezuelan government now that the president has been taken?
>> Well, let me say a few things. First, uh, all of the various explanations that have been given are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Meaning that they are whatever joke or improvisation the United States wants to use for the moment. Uh, the US has been trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela for 23 years. Uh, they tried to coup against the predecessor of Maduro, Hugo Chavez. Uh, they have announced that the US is the enemy, uh, that Venezuela is the enemy of the United States, to put it, uh, more clearly, because this has been a left-wing regime that believes that Venezuela's resources belong to Venezuela, and that Venezuela does not have to follow US dictates on who controls the oil and who receives the rents and so on. And so this is a long story, and it's very important to understand. In 2017, in Trump's first year of office, he said to a dinner table of Latin American leaders, "Why don't I just invade Venezuela?" Uh, two of the leaders talked him down from that. I heard from two presidents that were there independently about this dinner. That idea of Trump of invading Venezuela is eight years in the making. The lead, uh, uh, cheerleader of invading Venezuela was Senator Marco Rubio, and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And there were celebrations in Florida today of, uh, Venezuelan expats and, uh, others, uh, celebrating the US action. What does this mean? This is partly US politics because Florida is a swing state, but it means it's been a long-term project. Whatever is said is just blah, blah, blah. This is a concerted, long-term attempt to bring down the government of Venezuela. I think people would do well to understand how US foreign policy operates. It operates on a long-term basis and tells whatever lies or stories or narratives it wants to tell at any given moment to keep the long-term narrative. In the case of Ukraine, it was a 30-year project to bring Ukraine into the American military orbit. This goes back to the early 1990s. In the case of Venezuela, it's been a more than 20-year effort. In the case of Syria, where Bashar al-Assad was brought down, uh, last year, that was an effort of 13 years by the CIA and the US deep state. These are projects. And trying to overthrow Venezuela, which just happens to have the world's largest reserves of oil in the whole world, larger than Saudi Arabia, though more expensive to produce because it's heavy oil, but still the world's largest reserves. Well, this is a project of the United States. Trump is unusually thuggish. The collapse of the American constitutional order is very far advanced. I would say if you think about Roman history, going from the Roman Republic to the, uh, Roman Empire, which is usually dated to 27 BC with Augustus becoming the princeps, I would say we're somewhere into the reign of Tiberius now. In other words, the US stopping a constitutional order 10, 20, 30 years ago. But we have the trappings of the Senate, the same way that the Romans kept the trappings of the Senate. We don't have a constitutional order. We have a president enriching himself and his friends. Nobody says a word. Uh, we have a president that rules by executive decree. No one says a word. We have a president going to war against Iran or complicity in Gaza or attacking Venezuela or bombing Nigeria. Nobody says a word. We're into a post-constitutional order in the United States. So this is, uh, really, uh, our situation. It's quite dramatic. The world should not sit by if it takes any lessons from history. This is an extraordinarily dangerous period. The reason we created international law, the International Court of Justice, uh, it was not for the US to sanction it and threaten it, and bludgeon it. It was to avoid global annihilation in a third world war. But that one, uh, in the nuclear age, we're getting closer to that every moment when we rip up the UN Charter.
You know, to give the Peace Prize to Machado, it, it made some sense because for the past 30 years, we've been saying that peace depends on democracy, and democracy is delivered by military force. So essentially, war is peace. This is kind of the logic for the past 30 years. But you see now in the media, uh, some repetition of this, that is, uh, all the media outlets, they don't discuss the legality of what the United States has done, but they refer to Maduro as a dictator, and suggesting, well, now there might be freedom. So they do what they can to make this seem legitimate. And, uh, um, and, uh, of course, the EU frames this as standing with the Venezuelan people against their president. But, as said before, Trump has also threatened now to help the people of Iran, uh, if they are, you know, if the protesters are, well, shot or arrested by their government. So, you know, while, while legitimizing it might work across the Western world, the world is looking very different now. I'm not saying that countries like China or Russia would go to war with the United States. Uh, I don't think under any circumstances they're considering anything of the sort. But what are the wider ramifications here now? Because if you're sitting in Iran and other countries, you must be aware that all, all rule of law is now essentially gone. And, uh, it does feel the US has gone rogue. Again, when he started speaking, it went through a very solid list of only the things the Trump administration has done over the past few weeks. So what do you think are the wider ramifications beyond, of course, the, the, the sufferings in Venezuela?
>> Well, the first thing I would say, by the way, is that the idea that democracy is peace is a fairy tale that was disproved 2,300 years ago and countless times since then. Athens was the democracy of its day, and it was utterly imperialistic, making war, destroying other city-states. Uh, it finally ended up, uh, uh, in a way, committing its own suicide by, uh, an extravagant adventure to conquer Syracuse, a city-state in Sicily, which then, when it failed, left it exposed to a final defeat by Sparta in 404 BC. In the 19th century, the great democracy was Britain, certainly the most violent country of the 19th century, the country that attacked just about everybody in the world. And, uh, in the, uh, 20th century, the United States, especially in the second half of the 20th century, when the US became the global hegemon, or the would-be global hegemon, replacing Britain, the United States has certainly been the most violent country in the world. A hundred regime change operations or so, wars of choice, perpetual war, all on whatever narrative, whatever lies, whatever story the United States wanted. And for many reasons, whether it was resources or, uh, uh, simple conquest or ideological campaigns, but it's been war. So the idea that democracy is peace is an Orwellian idea. Democracy by these leading hegemons, whether it's Athens or Britain or the United States, has meant war almost nonstop.
Now, Iran is a project, like Venezuela is a project, like Syria is a project. The United States has been intervening in Iran since 1953, when it toppled the first, when it toppled a democratic government of Mosaddegh, which had the audacity to think that the oil under Iranian ground was actually Iranian. And when Mosaddegh declared that Iranian oil was Iranian and would be controlled by Iran, MI6 and the CIA overthrew Mosaddegh and installed a police state. When the police state fell in 1979, the United States armed Iraq to attack Iran, and hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Since that time, the United States has tried to, uh, destroy Iran in multiple ways. Economic sanctions, uh, repeatedly, of course, that's why there are protests because the economy is, uh, in a collapse. But the US is the agent of that sanctions regime. Uh, when Iran negotiated an arrangement to, uh, absolutely show that its nuclear program was curbed, Trump said, "No, we will crush the regime instead." This is all at the behest of the Zionist lobby in the United States and Israel, uh, in, in this case. So this is another project they're probably chronicling. Well, look, we're very, very close right now. We should understand that the protests in Iran are part of the script. I'm not saying people aren't protesting. I'm saying the US has gone out of its way to crush the Iranian economy and to crush the regime. And last week, Trump made all of this very, very clear. So we, I think, can expect Israeli bombing soon, or maybe US and Israeli bombing soon, uh, or some other CIA operation. God only knows. But I was saying that for the world, this is alarming. It's not something to just go along with. I don't think, even though, as I said, the UN really is defunct right now, it should not be allowed to die. Uh, it needs, uh, to be brought back to life. And while the US will not do that, the rest of the world, maybe the rest of the world, except the so-called Western alliance, you have 85% of the world, uh, that really should not want this kind of thuggery. Of course, as an American, I don't want this kind of thuggery, but nobody asked the American people anything anymore. This is all a military state that we're in, uh, that is extra-constitutional.
>> Well, it seems that the success of the US attack, though, on Venezuela will to a large extent depend on how quick they can do this. If they're able to topple the government and, you know, get this done by the end of the weekend, then, uh, it, it would be low-hanging fruit. Just, uh, you know, we went in, we showed strength, and now we have older oil. But, uh, if it drags on, it could be deeply problematic. How do you see this affecting the base of Donald Trump? Because it appears that the, the America First people are already quite kind of split with the, you know, the people essentially aligned with the ideas of Tucker Carlson see this as being, yeah, a violation of what, of a Trump's mandate, what they voted for.
>> I think you're exactly right. Uh, what will determine the verdict is what happens in the coming days and weeks and months. My, uh, guess on that, and I will underscore guess, is that nothing will go smoothly. We have a long history of regime change operations. Sometimes they succeed. This one has not even succeeded yet. This has been a decapitation of a president and his wife, not of the regime, and, uh, it's hard actually to see how the regime is brought down by this per se. Uh, but there could, uh, it's possible, uh, that something more happens. I'm sure there are plans and ideas, but the history of these operations is that they are followed by long periods of unrest, coups, instability, insurrections, civil war. And I think that this is quite possible what will happen in Venezuela. Uh, there's a, a very good book that everyone who wants to understand American foreign policy should read, called Covert Regime Change by Lindsey O'Rourke, who was a PhD student of John Mearsheimer and wrote her dissertation on the 64 covert regime change operations that took place between 1947 and 1989. By the way, covert regime change is, uh, a little bit of an oxymoron. When the regime is changed, you know who did it. What covert means is the US lies about it. So, not that it's unknown who did it, but that the US lies about it. So, you could say 64 regime change operations in which the US lied. Now, uh, she documents what happens. Many of them failed to achieve regime change. Maybe they assassinated a leader but didn't change the regime. Many changed the regime. But of those that changed the regime, most descended into prolonged instability. There are very few cases where the US political purpose was served by what happened. Uh, even if you don't accept the US political purpose as legitimate, just to ask the question, did the US achieve its aims? The answer is very, very rarely. And I think in the case of Venezuela, it would be a real long shot that the US achieves its aims, even, and I don't accept the aims, but, uh, even if one accepted the aims of regime change, the idea that this will lead to a pro-US democracy in which Chevron and ExxonMobil will thrive. Well, that's Trump's aim, but I think it's unlikely to be realized.
I can't help but to think that, uh, part of the problem here is that the US can't really compete with China anymore. And, uh, when the new US national security strategy seeks essentially to restore this new imperialist version of the Monroe Doctrine, it's clearly aimed at, uh, at China. They're concerned that China is the main trading partner of most, if not all, of Latin America. So how do you expect the reaction from different world leaders to be? I know the, the Chinese and the Russians especially have sent out very strong condemnation, but, uh, do you see this moving in a dangerous direction?
>> Well, it certainly moves in a dangerous direction. Anytime there is a violent, uh, attack by the United States against another country, it, uh, can have many profound ricochet effects. So, this is, of course, dangerous. I don't think that Russia or China, as you rightly said, will directly intervene or challenge, uh, the United States on this militarily, though I think that they will strongly condemn this from the point of view of the UN Charter. If, uh, we see this followed up by violence inside Venezuela and a, uh, an attack by Israel in Iran, well, then we're really heading towards a potential complete explosion and disaster. Uh, Iran, of course, would be, uh, far more dangerous and destabilizing than, uh, this attack on Venezuela, which is bad enough. But, uh, if, uh, Israel now takes this, uh, and I think they're very likely to, as the cue for an attack on Iran, um, I think we're heading towards, uh, all kinds of, uh, very, very dire and unpredictable consequences. Uh, Iran itself is no pushover, and Venezuela may prove to be no pushover, but Iran is far stronger and able to inflict far more damage, and with friends that can inflict even far more damage. So it's extremely dangerous. This kind of thuggery has a contagion effect. Uh, complete lawlessness by, uh, the, uh, by, by the United States, the ripping up of the UN Charter by the United States, does not, uh, lead to good results unless the rest of the world understands how dangerous this is. And we don't see that coalescing of the rest of the world, at least for the moment.
>> Moment. Yeah, I see that, um, prominent European leader just recently tweeted now that they're worried about the narrative because when Washington says that stolen oil must be returned, this is, it's too similar to what Caracas is saying. So, more or less, what seems to bother the European leaders is that Trump isn't following the script. Just say, you know, democracy, freedom, and then for some, yeah, then it will become legitimate. But by reference in oil, it will not be. Um, but just a last very brief question, how do you see this impacting, for example, the, the Ukraine war? Because it's very hard for the world not to see this as being hypocrisy, as you and I discussed before, the Ukraine war was anything but unprovoked, but this was an actual unprovoked invasion.
>> Yes. I mean, Ukraine, ironically, though in Europe, what you and I have been discussing is not accepted. But the truth is, Ukraine is another story of a US project. So I think the main point is one should not glibly say, "Well, the US is doing in Venezuela what Putin did in Ukraine." It's actually the US is doing in Venezuela what the US did in Ukraine. So this is both US-provoked. These are both projects of the US. And I hope, I hope people can come to understand how US foreign policy works and what a military state really means. What a military-industrial complex without constitutional bounds means. What the CIA means in such operations. If they did, they would understand that when we view Ukraine and Venezuela, we're viewing the same phenomenon as long-term projects of the would-be global hegemon carried out in different ways. Now, I think Trump maybe has the idea, maybe that the Americas are ours. The Middle East is ours. Africa. We don't want Ukraine. Well, that's Russia's. That's not even how Russia views it, but that may be how Trump views it. Uh, and, uh, it may be okay. Uh, I'm going to do what I want in the places that I want, which are the Middle East and in the Americas, and I'm going to get away with it. I'm going to have my way, and if others do whatever they want to do, that's okay with me. Uh, in other words, lawlessness everywhere. That, that is probably Trump's interpretation. Uh, it doesn't bode well for any kind of sensible, true peace in this world, but it could be the way that Trump views this issue.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time. And, uh, I assume that once this war comes to an end, Trump will have the audacity to claim, uh, that he ended the war as part of his big list.
Indeed, he did the same after attacking Iran. He took credit for ending that war after financing the genocide in Gaza. He took credit for ending this as well. He says trying to be a mediator in Ukraine, even though this is largely a US war as well. So I, I think we're seeing a pattern here of the Trump the peacemaker. So thank you very much again for taking the time.
Great to be with you. Thanks so much.