{"id":196779,"date":"2026-01-13T16:29:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-is-repeating-the-mistakes-of-iraq-in-venezuela-mohamad-bazzi-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T16:29:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:29:02","slug":"trump-is-repeating-the-mistakes-of-iraq-in-venezuela-mohamad-bazzi-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-is-repeating-the-mistakes-of-iraq-in-venezuela-mohamad-bazzi-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump is repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Venezuela | Mohamad Bazzi – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

As it did in 2003, the US is underestimating the potential for instability as Trump resurrects one of the Iraq war\u2019s biggest myths
\u201cL<\/span>adies and gentlemen, we got him!\u201d Paul Bremer, the US proconsul in Iraq, memorably declared<\/a> at a press conference in Baghdad on 14 December 2003, a day after US troops had captured Saddam Hussein. Iraqis in the audience broke out in cheers, leapt up from their seats and pumped their fists in the air \u2013 many had waited decades for that moment. \u201cThis is a great day in Iraq\u2019s history,\u201d Bremer said, adding: \u201cThe tyrant is a prisoner.\u201d
I was in the audience that day in Baghdad, covering the Iraq invasion\u2019s aftermath as a correspondent for a US newspaper. It quickly became clear that Bremer and other jubilant US officials would use the occasion \u2013 US soldiers dragged<\/a> the disheveled former Iraqi dictator out of a hole in the ground where he had been hiding near his home town \u2013 to declare that America\u2019s war had reached a decisive turn. Despite a growing insurgency led by ex-members of the Iraqi security forces, US officials in Baghdad and Washington projected confidence that victory was in sight now that Saddam was locked up and headed for the gallows.
That turned out to be wishful thinking, as the Iraq war and insurgency dragged on for years. Saddam\u2019s capture was ultimately a minor blip \u2013 and the first in a series of \u201cwe got him\u201d episodes, where US officials would celebrate the arrest or killing of an insurgent or jihadist leader<\/a> as a turning point, only to be further embroiled in a grinding conflict that destroyed Iraqi society and cost America enormous blood and treasure.
I thought of Bremer\u2019s gleeful declaration as I watched Donald Trump announce on 3 January that US forces had attacked Venezuela<\/a> and seized its president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, whisking him to New York to stand trial on drugs, weapons and \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d charges. Trump didn\u2019t have a pithy quote lined up as Bremer had done, but the president struck a triumphalist tone as he expounded on the US military\u2019s ability to carry out more attacks and warned other Venezuelan leaders that they too could be targeted. \u201cAll political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them,\u201d Trump said<\/a> at his press conference in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, adding: \u201cThe dictator and terrorist Maduro is finally gone in Venezuela. People are free, they\u2019re free again.\u201d
The rush of a quick, and seemingly clean, military operation that leads to the capture or killing of a despot is a powerful photo op in US politics<\/a>. Yet the subsequent hangover instigated by regime change can be long, bloody and destabilizing.
Of course, Venezuela is not Iraq and the US intervention unfolding in Caracas is different, with no US troops on the ground and no imminent plans for an American occupation. But even in these early days, Trump is repeating the mistakes that George W Bush\u2019s administration made in Iraq. Aside from Trump\u2019s vague statements that the US would \u201crun\u201d Venezuela for an unspecified transitional period, it seems his administration has done little or no planning<\/a> for the \u201cday after\u201d scenarios once Maduro was removed from power. On 4 January, a day after Trump declared he would take control of Venezuela, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, tried to backpedal that assertion. Rubio said<\/a> the US would not try to govern Venezuela day-to-day, but instead the US military would enforce a quarantine on the country\u2019s oil shipments that Trump had imposed before Maduro\u2019s ouster.
During the Bush administration, the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, along with other neocons who led the charge to invade Iraq, undermined Pentagon officials<\/a> who tried to draft plans to secure and rebuild the country after the invasion. They also discarded a state department initiative, called the Future of Iraq Project, which tried to plan for postwar scenarios<\/a>.
Trump\u2019s haphazard Venezuela policy has other echoes of US failures in Iraq: his administration is underestimating polarization and the potential for political violence<\/a> within Venezuelan society, and Trump is eager to claim that oil revenues would recoup the costs of a more extensive US intervention. Trump has long been obsessed with the idea that to the victor belong the spoils. \u201cWe should have kept the oil in Iraq,\u201d he has complained<\/a> for years. Now, Trump keeps suggesting<\/a> that Venezuela\u2019s vast petroleum reserves \u2013 the largest in the world at more than 300bn barrels \u2013 will underwrite the costs of military intervention and subsequent rebuilding<\/a>.
Trump is resurrecting one of the Iraq war\u2019s biggest myths \u2013 that an oil-rich country can pay for its own occupation and reconstruction. \u201cThe oil revenues of that country could bring between $50bn and $100bn over the course of the next two or three years,\u201d Wolfowitz confidently told Congress<\/a> in 2003. \u201cWe are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.\u201d
It did not turn out that way. After years of international sanctions and mismanagement under the Baathist regime, Iraq\u2019s oil infrastructure was dilapidated and needed billions of dollars in investment. It took until 2009, six years after the US invasion, for Iraq to provide security guarantees and attract investment<\/a> from multinational oil companies that brought production levels back to those under Saddam\u2019s rule. And many US energy firms stayed away from investing in Iraq\u2019s oil sector for two decades, until the Iraqi government offered more favorable deals<\/a> last year.
In the end, the US spent far more than the $50bn to $60bn the Bush administration projected<\/a> it would need to overthrow the Iraqi regime and install a new government. In 2023, on the 20th anniversary of the US invasion, the Costs of War project<\/a> estimated that the conflict in Iraq (along with neighboring Syria, where the US intervened in 2014 to fight Islamic State militants that had emerged from Iraq) had cost Washington nearly $2.9tn. Aside from funding directed to the Pentagon to carry out military operations, that staggering figure also includes spending by the state department; interest on US debt incurred over 20 years; and healthcare costs for US veterans.
And yet Trump is hanging on to his fantasy that a large-scale US intervention in, or occupation of, Venezuela would pay for itself. \u201cIt won\u2019t cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial,\u201d Trump said<\/a> at his Mar-a-Lago press conference. He added: \u201cWe\u2019re going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend.\u201d
Never mind that the Chavista regime under the interim president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, has deployed armed militias<\/a> to patrol streets and run checkpoints across Caracas to crack down on any potential dissent. Venezuela\u2019s oil infrastructure is crumbling and needs tens of billions of dollars in investment. One research firm estimated that the Venezuelan government and oil companies would need to invest more than $180bn<\/a> over a decade to restore the country\u2019s production back to its levels in the late 1990s, when it pumped about 3m barrels a day. Today, Venezuela produces a third of that output.
By openly announcing his desire to seize control of Venezuela\u2019s oil revenue, Trump has stripped away the veneer of benevolence that usually accompanies US military interventions. But the country\u2019s oil riches will provide far fewer spoils than he\u2019s counting on.
And while Trump can bask in the glory of a quick military operation that captured his nemesis Maduro, the US president risks unleashing his own series of \u201cwe got him\u201d moments \u2013 hollow victories that can\u2019t overcome the chaos and bloodshed of failed regime change.
Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As it did in 2003, the US is underestimating the potential for instability as Trump resurrects one of the Iraq war\u2019s biggest myths\u201cLadies and gentlemen, we got him!\u201d Paul Bremer, the US proconsul in Iraq, memorably declared at a press conference in Baghdad on 14 December 2003, a day after US troops had captured Saddam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-196779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}