The government of Donald Trump considered in 2019 the possibility of initiating military action in Venezuela with the aim of hitting Iran, revealed Mark Esper, who served as Secretary of Defense of the former US president.
In an interview for CBSEsper noted that this proposal came from the White House in the last year of the Trump administration “to attack Iran.”
“At one point, someone proposed blocking Cuba,” recalled the former minister.
Esper described this and other proposals as “dangerous” ideas, which he rejected at the time because, in his opinion, they could have taken the United States in a “dark direction.”
“These ideas happened, it seemed, every few weeks. Something like this would come up and we had to crush them. I had good support from General Mark Milley,” he said.
During the interview, Esper also said that then-President Trump discussed, at least twice, the possibility of launching missiles into Mexico, to “destroy drug laboratories” and annihilate the cartels. He argued that US involvement in an attack against his southern neighbor could be kept secret, Esper said.
Esper assured that he could have resigned and considered the idea several times, but he believed that the president was surrounded by submissive people and people who whispered dangerous ideas to him that would have put a supporter of the regime in his place. Esper decided that the true act of service was to stay in his position to make sure something like this didn’t happen.
«Military action in Venezuela is possible»
On May 1, 2019, the then US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, stated that military action is possible “if required” to promote a political transition in Venezuela.
“Military action is possible. If that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do,” Pompeo said in a morning interview with Fox.
Pompeo stressed, however, that the goal is for there to be a “peaceful” transition of power in Venezuela.
The day before, the United States had pressured the Venezuelan military and key figures of Chavismo to support the uprising led by Juan Guaidó, and blamed Russia and Cuba for the fact that, several hours after the uprising, Nicolás Maduro remained in power.
The interim president of Venezuela appeared together with the leader of his Voluntad Popular party, Leopoldo López, who circumvented the prison he was serving at his home to join the demonstrations, in which at least one person was killed and 77 injured, including 8 members. of the security forces.
At the end of the day, the military uprising did not materialize in Venezuela, something that Pompeo attributed to the influence of Russia.