International relations expert Rafael Calduch Cervera has warned that “the United States and the Trump administration are very realistic about the steps they have to take” in Venezuela.
“It is very likely that they have already conveyed or communicated part of this strategy to Corina Machado so that those in exile do not put too many obstacles in the way of these initial phases of the transition operation,” Calduch said in statements to Europa Press Television.
“They have to reach an agreement with them so that, first, they are authorized to deploy troops on the ground, and second, so that they can operate once they have control of those troops,” the expert explained.
The expert considered that the arrest of Maduro and his wife in the United States “demonstrates the explicit will, even militarily, of the United States to recover the importance that the Biden, Obama, and Bush Jr. administrations had allowed to decline in what they call the hemispheric space, that is, what we know as Latin America.”
Calduch warned that “there is a risk of escalation of violence” in Venezuela if the Chavistas “do not accept the transition,” although he acknowledged that he has “no idea” how that situation could be resolved, since “it would depend on the extent to which the United States is willing to address this escalation of internal civil violence with new attacks against the power centers of the Armed Forces.”
