Report: Ex-Chevron Exec Advised CIA Before Maduro Capture
Was the U.S. intervention necessary to protect national security or little more than a grab for oil?
Above: Ali Moshiri (L) at the 2017 Concordia Annual Summit at Hyatt Grand Central New York, U.S., on Sept. 18, 2017. Image credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images/Concordia Summit
The Spin
Pro-Trump narrative
Maduro was an indicted narcoterrorist running an illegitimate regime that flooded the U.S. with drugs while handing Venezuela over to Iran and Hezbollah — removing him was the right call. The Western Hemisphere cannot be allowed to become a staging ground for U.S. adversaries, and President Trump proved that, unlike his predecessors, he will take steps to prevent this from happening.
Anti-Trump narrative
The revelation that a former Chevron executive personally shaped the U.S. approach to Venezuela proves what this intervention was really all about — oil. Neither democracy nor stopping drugs was ever of any real concern; from the very beginning, this was nothing more than a naked grab for Venezuela's resources dressed up in the language of national security.
