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Notes -
It has been darkly amusing people trying to model Iraq or Syria onto Venezuela, however.
Iraq and Syria were as bad as they were because they were sectarian civil wars on ethnic and religious lines, against minority ruler sects that had been suppressing the demographic majority for decades. In turn, those regimes were backed by demographic minorities who knew/feared that, if they lost, they might be genocide/ethnically cleansed. It's not exactly clear who the corresponding ethnic groups are in Venezuela. They were also as bad in part because Syria in particular spent nearly a decade supporting the neighboring insurgency in Iraq... but the Venezulan-supported narcos and gangs are already present in the capital city, by design.
In turn, the Iraq War accusation that the US would steal the oil runs into past and contextual history. In the past, that accusation never actually occurred- the Iraqi oil wells were back under Iraqi control, and largely used to fund the reconstruction and social welfare programs. Which is not what they are currently doing in Venezuela, because in the Venezuela contextual history the Chavistas already stole the oil for foreigners by giving so much away for basically free, especially Cuba, and in the corruption/mismanagement of the state oil companies. An American takeover, Iraq-style, would be unironically an improvement of the oil benefits to the country.
While there are certainly ways for this to get worse, and I am never inclined to rule it out entirely, it warrants a bit more insight than merely 'it's gonna be a quaqmire like Iraq!' or 'but Syria!'
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