More than a year ago, Kenneth Adelman, a prominent national-security official in the Reagan Administration who now serves part time, with Richard Perle, on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, wrote a piece for the Washington Post . Its title was “Cakewalk in Iraq,” and its payoff went like this: “I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they’ve become much weaker; (3) we’ve become much stronger; and (4) now we’re playing for keeps.” It’s worth remembering that “last time”—that is, in 1991, when a genuine coalition of American, European, and Arab armies expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait—the ground war was over in a hundred hours. Next time, the reader was left to conclude, the job would be wrapped up even faster.
Now Elliot Abrams arises from his crypt:
Elliott Abrams returns, promoting a Caracas cakewalk
It may not be a “cakewalk,” but it’ll still be pretty damn easy.
Just a few air strikes at key targets in Venezuela and the “remov[al],” presumably by U.S. Special Forces, of “the regime’s top thug,” and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro should collapse like souffle, paving the way to democracy, economic prosperity, and national reconciliation.
That’s the scenario painted by a leading, if controversial, neoconservative in a new article entitled “How to Topple Maduro,” published Thursday by the highly influential “Foreign Affairs” journal.
The author: Elliott Abrams, who served as Special Representative for Venezuela in President Trump’s first term. He also helped prosecute the contra war in Nicaragua as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs under former President Ronald Reagan (and was convicted of misleading Congress about his role in the Iran-contra affair), and wait for it… he was former President George W. Bush’s senior Middle East adviser on the National Security Council (2002-2009) during which he promoted the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq and backed an equally disastrous coup attempt against Hamas in Gaza.
Dick Cheney the key architect of the 2003 Iraq War must be crying in his grave that he is missing from the run up to this foreign adventure. eg cluster *#@%.