Venezuela/Guyana Controversy Highlights Oil's Strategic Importance

On October 18, credulous officials of the Biden administration, desperate to get more oil on the market in the face of then-rising gasoline prices, made a deal with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro to lift most U.S. sanctions targeting his country in exchange for a laughable pledge from the most thuggish national leader in the Western Hemisphere to hold free and fair elections.

The first indication Maduro had no intention of keeping that promise arrived December 3, when Maduro claimed victory in a national referendum giving his government unchecked authority to invade the tiny neighboring nation of Guyana and lay claim to the Essequibo region that constitutes 75% of Guyanese territory. With independent exit polls showing a voter turnout of roughly 12% of registered voters, Maduro officials made the absurd claim that actual turnout was 51%, along with the even more ridiculous claim that 98% of them voted to approve an invasion. Both claims were Putin-like in their undisguised audacity.

Maduro moved quickly to exploit his new-claimed powers, spending much of last week massing his military troops and hardware along the Guyanese border. By December 7, the situation had become tense enough that the Biden government announced it would respond by holding joint military exercises with the tiny Guyanese security forces, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, after placing his country’s military on alert, agreed to serve as the moderator of a meeting between Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali on December 14.