"When Donald Trump started sending warships, marines and reaper drones to the Caribbean in August to torment Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro, the US's former ambassador in Caracas, James Story, suspected the deployment was largely for show: a spectacular flexing of military muscle supposed to force the authoritarian leader from power. But in recent days, as the world's largest aircraft carrier and its strike group powered towards the region and the US president continued to order deadly airstrikes on alleged narco-boats, the diplomat's thinking has shifted."
"Two months ago Story, who was Washington's top diplomat for Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, saw only a 10% chance of some kind of US attack on Venezuelan soil and an 80% chance that Trump's gambit would come to nothing. Now, he said he is 80% sure things would evolve into some kind of military action and sees only a 20% chance the status quo would hold."
"I'd say [something is] imminent, without a doubt, Story predicted as observers in Venezuela and around the world battled to forecast what the unpredictable US president's next move might be. Maduro, a strongman political survivor who has overcome a torrent of dramatic crises and challenges since being elected in 2013, has tried to put a brave face on Trump's maneuver, which has rekindled memories of the 1989 US invasion of Panama to topple its dictator, Manuel Noriega."
US President Donald Trump deployed warships, marines, and surveillance drones to the Caribbean and ordered airstrikes on alleged narco-boats as the USS Gerald R Ford and its strike group moved toward Venezuela. Former US ambassador James Story revised his assessment from a 10% to an 80% chance of US military action, citing changed facts on the ground and the largest US military buildup in Latin America in decades. Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro publicly downplayed the threat with jokes but has faced assassination attempts, protests, economic collapse, and sanctions and is perceived by insiders as nervous amid the heightened threat.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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