He’ll be dead before the oil is truly flowing in Venezuela again. And despite his belief that America owns everything, the oil actually belongs to the Venezuelan people. Unless he truly plans to occupy the country (and all the others he is threatening with annexation) everything he says is nonsense.
But he may have no choice. It’s possible that this is just Rubio’s wet dream to “free” Cuba and the whole thing will fall by the wayside once that’s done and they will re-direct him to the next shiny object. I guess at this point that’s the best option.
But I think we do have to take seriously the idea that there is a movement a foot in the Republican Party that’s eagerly following the Stephen Miller line that says America is a superpower and we take what we want, just like the imperial powers of the 18th and 19th centuries. They see a fight for resources and technology — oil, “rare earth minerals”, AI etc., and the need for a huge military buildup to back up their ambitions.
They are rapidly throwing the old order into the garbage — the idea of a laws based international order, guaranteed by institutions and formal diplomatic and military alliances is rapidly becoming a relic of the past. You can see people accepting the idea that there is no need for even a pretense that might doesn’t make right anymore.
Maybe it was inevitable that 80 years after WWII the lessons of the 20th century and the nuclear age would become ancient history. I’m not sure I would have expected that the United States would be the country to empower a senile, ignorant, demagogue to lead the way but maybe I should have.