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In Iraq, the biggest problem during that whole Israeli errand was that the nest day, out of touch smug American leadership that was culturally ignorant had no plan --literally on his to make the trains run on time and furthermore. they didn't realize that after a few months, a few Americans passing out Big Macs and platitudes about Democracy can't control a bazillion Iraqis.

This Venezuela thing can be such a good game changer in terms of American Power.

But if it's allowed to turn into yet another street or jungle war, it'll be yet another mass loss of life ---for nothing.

Wow, it's been awhile since I've wanted to see something work out well for you people.

This is oil and fossil fuels - I guess that's why.

In Iraq, the biggest problem during that whole Israeli errand was that the nest day,

One of the guys on TYT was around during the Iraq invasion. He said he saw a presentation by one of the Bush junta people, with four slides. iirc, he said slide 3 was something about the Iraqi government falling. Slide 4 said "TBD".

Recall Rant #1: the entire op was about taking Iraqi production off line, to raise oil prices.

Iraqi production had been restricted by UN sanctions, for a decade. Exports had been allowed to increase a bit, in the "oil for food program", but output was still constrained.

WTI was, at that time, $18-$20/bbl

Recall how fast Saddam presented the documentation to the UN about the disposal of all his WMDs?

Rant #1 long form: Saddam had destroyed all his WMD's, as required by the UN. He was about to present the documentation to the UN, and apply for repeal of the sanctions. Saddam had recently signed contracts with several (non-US) oil companies for development of Iraqi resources, in anticipation of the sanctions being repealed. Iraq had capacity to expand production far beyond what was allowed by the sanctions. The added supply would push oil prices even lower, hurting oil company profits. So, the Bush junta hatched a scheme to preempt repeal of the sanctions by invading. Instead of Iraqi production increasing, production would be disrupted by the war, tightening global supplies, and increasing oil company profits. To stoke the price increases further, the media cranked it's hype and hysteria machine up to "11", about "peak oil". *presto*, the price of oil quadrupled, and it all went in the oil company's pockets.

Rant #1 addendum: Iraqi production did not surpass the sanctions restricted level, until after the Bush junta left office in 2009. Then the Chinese moved into Iraq, and have doubled production, the outcome the Bush junta had fought against for it's entire term in office.

I anticipate the same "plan" here; not exploiting Venezuelan reserves to increase production, but to disrupt production to tighten supply and raise oil company profits.

Steve

I anticipate the same "plan" here; not exploiting Venezuelan reserves to increase production, but to disrupt production to tighten supply and raise oil company profits.

Thing is- Venezuelan production is currently less than 1 million bbl/day. Not sure how restricting that production will affect global crude output, especially given the elastic nature of OPEC quotas- leaky as they are.

I anticipate the same "plan" here; not exploiting Venezuelan reserves to increase production, but to disrupt production to tighten supply and raise oil company profits.

Thing is- Venezuelan production is currently less than 1 million bbl/day. Not sure how restricting that production will affect global crude output, especially given the elastic nature of OPEC quotas- leaky as they are.

Agreed. Of all of the mechanisms by which this operation could help oil companies, this seems the weakest. Global oil production is more than 105 mbpd, and Venezuela's output is well less than a percent of that. And it's fairly unlikely that the U.S. would want to zero out that production altogether, given the catastrophe that would inflict on the country (which depends on oil export revenue for something like 5% of GDP and about 60% of government revenue.

The far more likely benefits to oil companies (if such occur) would be that a different Venezuelan leader would either give them valuable access to Venezuela's oil reserves or provide some additional compensation for past nationalization and seizure of their assets. Or that they get some valuable subsidized opportunities to invest in Venezuela's oil infrastructure - even if they don't necessarily end up running the extraction, it can be good business to get paid to install a lot of equipment with a payment guarantee from the U.S. government rather than PdVSA. All of which are really speculative, and it's possible that none materialize. But cutting such a small amount from global oil production in the short term, with expectations of near doubling oil production in the longer term, is unlikely to materially increase oil prices - and indeed hasn't.

Thing is- Venezuelan production is currently less than 1 million bbl/day. Not sure how restricting that production will affect global crude output, especially given the elastic nature of OPEC quotas- leaky as they are.

Yes, a bit less than 1Mbpd. He is also threatening Columbia, 700,000bpd, and Iran, about 2Mbpd. If he could invent a excuse to attack Iraq, that would take 4Mbpd off the market.

Another thing he could do, which would impact USian refiners that want a lot of heavy, sour, would be to embargo Canadian imports. As Canada lacks the means to get that much crude to the coast for export, that would leave another 2Mbpd landlocked. When God and Savior Trump imposed tariffs last spring, he exempted Canadian crude, for the moment, but he did impose the tariff on Mexican crude. Mexico was unimpressed, as it *can* move it's crude to port, for export to other customers.

Steve

And it's fairly unlikely that the U.S. would want to zero out that production altogether, given the catastrophe that would inflict on the country

The Iraq op demonstrated that NeoCons care not one whit about the countries they invade, nor do they care one whit about our guys who are maimed or killed in their wars. They are all just expendable meat.

Steve

The Iraq op demonstrated that NeoCons care not one whit about the countries they invade, nor do they care one whit about our guys who are maimed or killed in their wars.

Probably not, but they like good optics rather than bad optics. The Iraq op didn't demonstrate that they didn't care about those things, just that they were naive and unprepared - they genuinely believed things would work out great. I have no doubt that the Administration went into this similarly believing that everything would work out - that Rodriguez and the military would be immediately cowed into subservience in the face of our might. Jury's still out on that.

But more to the original point, it's hard to imagine that Trump really wants oil prices to be higher. He doesn't personally benefit from higher oil prices, after all. If you want to look at the Venezuelan operation through the lens of oil, it makes much more sense that Trump (if not others in the Administration) viewed is as a chance for him to get de facto control of the largest oil reserves on earth and extract favors/money from the oil companies as he doled it out to favored interests. Taking it offline - so that no one gets any goodies and the oil companies benefit without him having a role - doesn't really fit into his modus operandi. He gains if he's the gatekeeper for Venezuelan oil, but he gets nothing if there's just a supply shock to global oil markets.

viewed is as a chance for him to get de facto control of the largest oil reserves on earth

Denial of access is as valuable as gaining access, and easier to do. Denial of access to someone else's resources, increases the value of the resources that you *do* have control of.

The Iraq op didn't demonstrate that they didn't care about those things, just that they were naive and unprepared

Rant #1 holds that chaos was the intended outcome in Iraq. We will see how Venezuela works out. Seems that imposing a Gringo dictatorship, as the Pirate King insists, would be the most likely to inflame the Venezuelan people, and promote chaos.

Steve

Denial of access is as valuable as gaining access, and easier to do.

No, it's not anywhere near as valuable. Trump would rather have a million bpd of oil to give away than the ability to take a million bpd of oil off the market, six days a week and twice on Sunday. Denying access is largely valueless to the big oil majors - gaining access could be really valuable to them, depending on the terms.

Rant #1 holds that chaos was the intended outcome in Iraq.

I think that's clearly wrong. The intended outcome in Iraq was a docile client state loyal to the U.S. as a patron that could be used to project power in the area and provide massive economic opportunities via Western firms developing their oil patch. Chaos could have been achieved with a much lower political cost to the neocons by simply blowing everything up without trying to build a new state in the aftermath of the war.

As for Venezuela, I think the Administration believes that establishing a Gringo dictatorship is beyond our grasp. Trump may not realize that, but the Administration does - which is why they acceded to Rodriguez (who is acceptable to the military) rather than push Machado (who would be much more pliable, but is not acceptable to the military). The public deal on offer appears to be the U.S. letting the status quo remain and not pressing the regime for political changes or new elections, in exchange for them letting us make some major policy calls (especially on the oil industry). Again, the jury's still out on whether TPTB are willing to make that deal, but they certainly didn't leap to accept it right away.

I think that's clearly wrong.

We will revisit this, in six months or so. See how things are shaping up.

Steve

stop looking for plans when there are only wishes.
stop looking for economics when there is only grift.

- if trump really wanted to crimp near and mid-term supply, he has had more than enough justification and time to choke russia and\or the thousand tanker darkfleet.
let's not pretend he avoided this simply due to guaranteed gop incompetence in strategy and execution.

- if anything has value here, its the right to Vz massive future reserves.
and the main value here is to flip them, not take the risk to hold on long enough post-trump.
although off-shore, capital intensive reserves excites the supermajors even less than trump 1.0 'drill baby drill' when energy was the only losing sector all 4 years.

but first, we should require an upfront payment back to taxpayers for the billions already spent sending and supporting a supercarrier.
no upstream energy depreciation off taxes allowed.
am i right doge? musk? hello, anyone there?

We will revisit this, in six months or so. See how things are shaping up.

We can certainly revisit it, but I don't think it will have any bearing on that specific question. We disagree on what the Administration thought would happen with their invasion, and what they intended to happen. But I think we both would agree that the Administration (any Administration) can have things turn out very differently from what they expected or intended do happen.

I believe the architects of the Iraq war thought that they would be able to establish a stable client state - and the fact that their efforts failed spectacularly and devolved into chaos doesn't mean they intended that chaos, just that they weren't able to achieve their goals and expectations.

I think that Venezuela is a little less clear. We don't know all that much yet. But given the way both Trump and Rubio got a little over their skis in their same-day press conferences, it's pretty clear that they both vastly overestimated Rodriguez' willingness to play along with Washington. She's supposedly far more pragmatic than Maduro and far more cognizant of the importance of redeveloping the oil industry, and was probably the "good cop" in the Maduro regime in diplomatic discussions with the U.S. I think this led Rubio to overestimate, and then oversell, how compliant she would be. But at the end of the day, she holds office at the pleasure of the military - and being pragmatic isn't limited to being clear-eyed about the problems with the Bolivarian Revolution, but also includes being a realist about how far she can bend the knee to Washington without facing a real chance of being up against a wall by domestic forces that are very much opposed to such cooperation. I think Rubio and Trump were both caught a little off guard that she chose to set up a little distance very early on.

That said, unlike Iraq, I think that the expectations of Rubio and Stephen Miller (perhaps not Trump's) are less binary. They may have overestimated the chances that they would get a compliant partner in Rodriguez, but I think they also felt that it's a win for U.S. policy just to get Maduro out and send a clear message that the U.S. is going to act without restraint in the Western Hemisphere. It's a clear win for the foreign policy hawks against the anti-interventionists (like JD Vance) in the internal conflicts within Administration and opens up opportunities for Miller's efforts to fight immigration and Rubio's longstanding desire to effect change in Cuba regardless of whether Rodriguez is a friend or just wary adversary.

So I think that it's wrong to think that the architects of either Iraq or Venezuela intended or expected the countries to result in chaos. I think both wanted and expected they would result in docile and stable client states. The difference, IMHO, is that I think that the Iraq architects were far more certain that everything was going to work out as they had planned and placed much more importance on that determining a successful outcome. I think ex ante, they would have regarded what actually ended up happening in Iraq as a bad outcome. For Venezuela, at least in these early days, I think that the Administration was very confident that it was going to work out but regarded the possibility that the "client state" thing might go pear-shaped as still being a successful and acceptable outcome as a worst-case result.

but first, we should require an upfront payment back to taxpayers for the billions already spent sending and supporting a supercarrier.

In his speech, the Pirate King said he intends to extract Billions in reparations from Venezuela for supposed harms caused to the US. But we Proles won't see a nickle. It will go to his nibs and his cronies.

Steve

- if trump really wanted to crimp near and mid-term supply, he has had more than enough justification and time to choke russia and\or the thousand tanker darkfleet.

let's not pretend he avoided this simply due to guaranteed gop incompetence in strategy and execution.

It's a matter of logistics. If the US hijacked a tanker full of Iranian crude in the Indian Ocean, or South China Sea, what would it do with it? No country is going to aid and abet USian piracy by allowing the US to steam the ship into their port, to auction off the ship and cargo, so the Pirate King can stuff the money into his pocket. They would need to sail the ship all the way to the US. When a ship leaves Kharg Island, bound for China, it probably has enough fuel to make the trip, but not enough to make it to the US. Again, what country would align itself with USian piracy, by allowing the highjacked ship to come into port to refuel?

Venezuela is the only place where ships can be hijacked, that is close enough to steam the booty back to the US.

Steve

again, complex justifications need not apply. i dont think you get trump at all.

if trump were able to make allies in enforcing serious russia sanctions, he could just offer the tanker to the nearest participant. plus, risk removal of a nearby oil spill catastrophe from these aged and unfit ships.
hell, even china and india may join if it was coming to end anyway.

so again i'll just go with his partnership\fear of putin, and no simple cut\control of the booty.

hell, even china and india may join if it was coming to end anyway.

The UK, having shot itself in the foot with BREXIT, has been desperate to suck up to the US. They went along with the US, and seized an Iranian tanker a few years ago. Didn't work out well for the UK

Here's the quickie view from the net sifter:

The UK seized the Iranian oil tanker Grace 1 (later renamed Adrian Darya 1) off Gibraltar in July 2019, suspecting it was carrying oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions, leading to a major international standoff that involved the detention of a British tanker by Iran in retaliation. Gibraltar's Supreme Court eventually ordered its release in August 2019 after Iran provided assurances the oil wouldn't go to sanctioned destinations, though the UK later accused Iran of breaking those promises

No-one is going to take a chance on siding with the Pirate King.

Steve

Remember that tanker the Coasties have been following, for days, since it left Venezuela. It has supposedly been re-registered in Russia. Will that stop the Pirate King?

US forces rush to seize Venezuelan oil tanker off Ireland in high-stakes operation

U.S. forces will attempt to capture an oil tanker that has historically carried Venezuelan crude oil off the coast of Ireland, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.

The U.S. has been tracking the Marinera, a tanker formerly known as the Bella 1, since it was sanctioned by the Treasury Department and as the Trump administration ramps up it's crackdown on Venezuela.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-forces-rus...

So, why has the US waited so long, to snatch it? Was it lack of a boarding party to seize it? Or is the Pirate King wondering if he can bully the UK into letting him steam the hijacked tanker into a UK port, so the ship and cargo can be auctions off, for the Pirate King's profit?

Putin will be pi$$ed. But the Pirate King's loyalty to Putin always seems to end, when it comes to profits for the Pirate King.

Steve

Putin will be pi$$ed. But the Pirate King's loyalty to Putin always seems to end, when it comes to profits for the Pirate King.

Seems that tankers registering as Russian has suddenly become popular.

How Russia is benefiting from Trump’s Venezuelan oil plan

“We have seen an accelerated shift of vessels changing to the Russian flag over the past month,” said Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List. “Seventeen shadow fleet tankers changed fraudulent flags to join the Russian flag in the past few weeks alone.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/06/oil-russia-venezue...

This, of course, invites the musical question, will the Pirate King hijack Russian flagged ships, because they carry Venezuelan oil, the way he hijacked a legitimately Panamanian flagged ship?

Steve

Seems that tankers registering as Russian has suddenly become popular.

Interesting confrontation building up near Iceland.

US seizing Venezuela-linked, Russian-flagged oil tanker after weeks-long pursuit

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. was attempting on Wednesday to seize a Russian-flagged oil tanker being shadowed by a Russian submarine, after a more than two-week-long pursuit across the Atlantic as part of a U.S. "blockade" of Venezuelan oil exports, two ​U.S. officials told Reuters.

The officials said Russian military vessels were in the general vicinity of the operation, including a Russian submarine. It was unclear how close the vessels were to the operation, but there were no indications of a confrontation between U.S. and Russian military forces.

Separately, the U.S. Coast Guard has also intercepted another Venezuela-linked tanker in Latin American waters, U.S. officials told Reuters, ‌as the U.S. continues enforcing its blockade of sanctioned vessels from Venezuela.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/articles/excl...

Historically, the US has started a couple wars, over US flag merchant vessels being snatched on the high seas, and there was a great deal of tension over the UK seizing US ships trying to run it's blockade of Europe in WWI.

But the Pirate King probably knows nothing about history.

Steve

But the Pirate King probably knows nothing about history.

"Probably"? LMAO

Trump obviously knows nothing about history.

US seizing Venezuela-linked, Russian-flagged oil tanker after weeks-long pursuit

Seems the US has successfully seized the Russian flagged tanker, without Russian military units in the area interfering.

U.S. European Command announced the seizure of the merchant vessel Bella 1 for “violations of U.S. sanctions” in a social medial post. The U.S. had been pursuing the tanker since last month after it tried to evade a U.S. blockade on sanctioned oil vessels around Venezuela.

Then, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revealed that U.S. forces also took control of the tanker Sophia in the Caribbean. Noem said in a social media post both ships were “either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it.”

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-f...

That is interesting. Now, apparently, being en rout to Venezuela is a crime.

It will be interesting to see what the US does with the Bella 1. Probably doesn't have enough fuel to steam all the way back to the US. Will the UK aid and abet the Pirate King's activities?

Steve...will be en route to the grocery store today...is that a crime now?

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