Anyone who's followed Latin American politics over the past few decades is familiar with Abrams. He's an unreconstructed, neo-con cold warrior with a checkered past across all GOP administrations since Reagan. He was a big player in the Iran Contra scandal. Most recently he was Trump's Venezuela envoy from 2019 to 2021.

He is unsurprisingly happy to see Maduro gone but seems to be somewhat shocked by the incoherence of the day after planning (such as it is.)

Now what? Again, the answer should be easy: The United States should be backing Venezuela's democratic parties. They united last year under Maria Corina Machado as their candidate for president, and she would have won the election. When Maduro barred her from running, they united under retired career diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez as a substitute candidate. Though he was almost unknown in Venezuela, he won a huge landslide because Machado backed him, and because he represented a return to democracy. The unity and effectiveness of the opposition last year were remarkable as it fought an election under the worst circumstances -- with the danger of arrest, exile, or worse constantly present, with rallies broken up violently, with no access to state media. Its victory is both a tribute to the opposition leadership and a measure of what Venezuelans want.

But President Trump seems much more concerned with Venezuelan oil than Venezuelan democracy. In his press conference he went out of his way to belittle Machado, stating that she lacked the necessary "respect" from Venezuelans to govern. There is simply no basis for that judgment (or prejudice) given the election results, her courage in remaining in hiding in Venezuela month after month, and now her receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Instead, Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken to Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodri­guez. Venezuelan democrats are now wondering whether Trump intends a deal with the remnants of the regime, in which they make all sorts of concessions on oil in exchange for being allowed to hang on.

That is a formula for disaster, and if that's U.S. policy, Trump will have turned triumph into a new crisis. If Rodriguez hangs on, what of the rest of the regime? Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino is also under a drug indictment, as is interior minister and key regime thug and enforcer Diosdado Cabello. If they stay in office, Trump will have sold our souls for a small amount of oil production.

. . .

As I said, Abrams is a neo-con who still thinks the U.S military invading a country will be greeted as liberators. And yes, there are some who see it that way. But they inevitably sour on the whole operation once it becomes clear that we are terrible at the Day After. For some reason these neo-cons never seem to learn that lesson. But maybe Trump's crude avarice is showing even a few of these types that this method is fatally flawed? Maybe.