When Donald Trump stood for election as President of the United States, he presented himself as the peace candidate. But let us examine the issue a little more closely.

When the leaders speak of peace, the common people know that war is coming.” (Berthold Brecht)

This morning, the man in the White House must have choked over his plate of corn flakes when he saw the headlines in the newspapers:

María Corina Machado, the most prominent leader of the Venezuelan opposition, had just won the Nobel Peace Prize!

Norwegian Nobel committee chair, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, commended Machado as a “brave and committed champion of peace” who “keeps the flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness”.

This most unwelcome – and unexpected – news struck the President of the United States with the force of a hammer blow.

“What the hell is going on? Have these people in Oslo lost their mind? Have they not seen the news? Don’t they have televisions in Norway?”

Poor Donald could scarcely believe his eyes. Only yesterday, he was savouring the momentous success of his peace plan for the Middle East, which must surely be inscribed in the annals of future history as one of the greatest triumphs in the entire history of world diplomacy.

“Have these guys in Oslo not witnessed the wild scenes of rejoicing in Gaza? Did they not see a mass of people dancing in the streets of Israel, waving American flags and singing my praises?”

The result should have been a foregone conclusion. The much sought-after prize should have been his for the asking! Something is badly wrong with the world today that it permits such a terrible injustice!

No doubt, the president will have used far stronger language than that. But, with due respect for etiquette, we will use a more charitable version. The essence, however, will be exactly the same.

When Donald Trump stood for election as President of the United States, he presented himself as the peace candidate. But let us examine the issue a little more closely. 

What is the real meaning of America’s alleged mission for peace in the world?

A champion of peace?

In George Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Peace (Minipax) is the government department responsible for war. Similarly, the Ministry of Truth deals in lies, the Ministry of Love is responsible for torture, and the Ministry of Plenty signifies poverty and starvation.

These are examples of what Orwell called Newspeak. It is alive and well in the world of the 21st century. So-called political correctness informs us that people are no longer killed in wars, they are merely ‘taken out’. The massacre of civilians – as in Gaza – is merely ‘collateral damage’. 

Under the guise of an alleged ‘free press’, we are constantly subjected to a barrage of lying propaganda. Last but not least, according to the biggest lie of all, we live under a ‘rules-based international order’.

Unfortunately, the rules referred to here are nowhere written down or codified in law. They have never been approved by any democratically-elected government or international organism.

They are merely invented by Washington at particular moments in order to justify whatever suits the interests of US imperialism. 

And the rest of the world is supposed to accept these arbitrary dictates or else face severe punishment, either in the form of sanctions, high tariffs, diplomatic pressure, or aerial bombardment and invasion.

Such, in a few words, is the essence of the foreign policy that has been pursued for decades by the United States. And it is still continued, albeit in a more chaotic and unpredictable manner, by the present administration.

At the beginning of September, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order changing the Defense Department’s name to the Department of War. 

The order authorises Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and subordinate officials to henceforth use secondary titles like ‘Secretary of War’ and ‘Deputy Secretary of War’.

This little detail tells us all we need to know about the real nature and aims of US imperialism. At least it is a bit more honest than the language of George Orwell’s 1984.

The promises of the Peace Candidate

Let us recall that during the presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would end the ‘forever wars’, to which the United States appears to be permanently addicted.

He promised that he would put an end to America’s involvement in the fatal morass that is the war in Ukraine, which he said he would end in a day. This was by no means a secondary factor in guaranteeing his victory.

Yet we now see that, far from ending, the war drags on with no immediate end in sight. And Donald Trump’s much vaunted plans for peace (one could hardly call them a strategy) turned out to be a jumble of confused, and frequently contradictory, notions.

He constantly changed his policies on the Ukraine war from one day to the next – sometimes, from one hour to the next – in an endless game of hide and seek, leading precisely nowhere.

His negotiations were doomed to failure from the beginning, because they refused to take into account the real war aims of both Russia and the Kyiv regime.

The demand for a ceasefire was never going to succeed, because the Russians – who are undoubtedly winning the war – had no interest whatsoever in accepting it.

On the other hand, Zelensky stubbornly rejected any suggestion of compromise, instead insisting on his so-called ‘peace plan’, which amounted essentially to demand for an unconditional capitulation on the part of the Russians.

The suggestion, originally thought up by General Kellogg, that the Russians could be persuaded to do a deal on the basis of a limited offer of territory, basically amounted to offering them what they had already conquered on the battlefield.

In any case, Zelensky would not hear of it. Therefore, there was absolutely no ground for any successful negotiations, since the aims of both sides were mutually incompatible and experience has shown that it is impossible to square the circle.

That is why Trump’s plan for peace ended in an entirely predictable debacle.

The USA and Israel

So much for Ukraine. But Trump’s ignominious failure to square the circle in Ukraine now seems to have been compensated by his apparent success relating to the Middle East.

But is this really the case?

To begin with, there is a vast difference between the two. Although the Ukrainian question is constantly put forward as being of vital importance to the interests of the West – including the United States – this is far from the case.

In fact, when examined in the cold light of day, setting aside all the noisy propaganda that serves to confuse the issue and turn the truth on its head, there is nothing in Ukraine that affects the vital interests of the United States.

By contrast, the Middle East is of extreme importance to America, for economic, political and strategic reasons. This partly explains Donald Trump’s obsessive – and at first sight incomprehensible – support for Benjamin Netanyahu.

At this moment in time, Israel represents the only firm point of support of US imperialism in the Middle East. From that point of view, the defence of Israel was always, and still remains, a central plank in Washington’s foreign policy.

It is this that explains the enormous support enjoyed by the pro-Israeli and Zionist lobby in Washington. That has always been present, but it appears to be expressed in an extreme form in the present administration.

It is a fundamental element in the ideology of the rabid ultra-right wing of the Republican Party, and also for the fanatical Christian fundamentalists who have acquired considerable support in the ranks of the Republicans.

Trump has always been inclined to that wing, and, now that he enjoys almost unlimited power as President of the United States, he finds himself in the position to give full expression to his prejudices.

This invariably led him into a policy of absolute and unconditional support for the regime of Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Nevertheless, on many occasions, the Israeli Prime Minister has shown himself to be a very awkward ally, so full of his own self-importance that he feels able and willing to bite the hand that so generously feeds him.

Years of experience have taught him that, whatever he does or says, in the last analysis Washington will always back him. Although Donald J. Trump is not a man who likes to be contradicted, he seemed willing to put up with quite a lot from his friend in Jerusalem.

This fatal alliance has now become an obvious weak point in American foreign policy. 

Israel isolated

The monstrous conduct of the Israeli army in Gaza has caused a backlash of world opinion, forcing even people like Starmer and Macron to attempt to distance themselves from the Israelis, at least in words.

But the words of moral outrage of the leaders of Europe, naturally, are devoid of any real content. They reek of hypocrisy. Even the ‘recognition’ of a hypothetical Palestinian state is really an empty gesture that does not affect the genocide in Gaza in the slightest degree.

It merely serves as a convenient smokescreen behind which these governments can conceal their support for Israel, to which they continue to send large quantities of weapons and money, with which the Israelis can continue their slaughter without the slightest hindrance.

In the words of the great French diplomat Talleyrand, “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute”: “It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.” The European leaders are now finding this out.

The attempt to dispatch a flotilla of small boats to provide aid to the starving people of Gaza was predictably sabotaged by the Israelis, who seized the boats and arrested some of those on board.

This immediately provoked a wave of fury, expressed in massive demonstrations and strikes in Italy, Spain and other countries. The Gaza war has become the focal point for all the accumulated rage and discontent of the masses.

It threatened to provoke a similar wave of outrage in the United States itself, and this will have profound and negative effects on the future of the Trump government.

In the end, Netanyahu simply went too far. When he ordered the bombing of a building in Doha, where representatives of Hamas were engaged in negotiations for peace, it provoked a storm throughout the whole Middle East.

Faced with losing important allies among Gulf states like Qatar, Trump was compelled to change his stance and come down hard on Netanyahu, whose insolence and arrogance provoked the fury of the man in the White House.

This was an important factor which persuaded Trump to stage an abrupt about-face on the question of Gaza. The details are by now well known to everybody. Trump announced to an astonished world that he had finally solved the Gaza problem, and that peace would be brought about within a matter of days.

Problem solved! But was it? The Israeli Prime Minister is well known to be as slippery as an eel and as treacherous as a poisonous snake. While verbally agreeing to all of Trump’s demands, he immediately began to backtrack.

While Hamas (or at least some of its leaders) reluctantly agreed to Trump’s plan (or at least, to some of it), Netanyahu remained petulant and defiant. In one, now notorious, phone call, he so exasperated the man in the White House, that Trump shouted at him: “Why are you so fucking negative all the time?”

This was not the first time that Trump has used similarly undiplomatic language in conversation with Netanyahu. But this time, Trump’s tone must have unnerved even the hard-nosed Israeli leader, convincing him finally that this man in Washington actually means business. From that point onwards, Benjamin Netanyahu was finally obliged to bend the knee before the Great White Chief.

This is now being trumpeted – not least, by the US President himself – as a momentous success. But is it? Has the war in Gaza really been solved? If we are to answer these questions, we must ask some other questions: 

Will Hamas really disarm? Will the Israelis actually withdraw from Gaza, and not merely retreat into certain areas pending a renewal of hostilities? 

Will Netanyahu finally accept the existence of a Palestinian state? And will Hamas be prepared to pull out of Gaza altogether, leaving it in the hands of so-called ‘technocrats’ and the likes of Tony Blair?

Not one of these questions has yet been satisfactorily answered. 

New wars for old?

While we’re on the subject of the Nobel Peace Prize, we must ask a few additional questions, since the danger of war is not confined to Ukraine and Gaza.

Recently, the US Department of War (as it is now called – with impeccable logic) summoned a meeting of around 800 generals, admirals and air force commanders, who were addressed by Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, and by the President of the United States. 

The actual purpose of this meeting was never made clear. From the public speeches, we learned precisely nothing. But there were also other speeches – ones that were not made public – the content of which has never been revealed.

What precisely was the purpose of convening such an extraordinary meeting?

To call together such a large number of commanding officers only makes sense on one condition – they are being asked to prepare for combat. 

And what might be the immediate target? There are two obvious candidates. One is Venezuela. The other is Iran.

Of course, it is not possible to be precise about this. Any predictions as to the course of action being planned must inevitably have a speculative character.

But if we base ourselves on the known facts, a very clear picture begins to emerge. In recent months, we have witnessed a noisy campaign directed against Venezuela in the American media.

Will the US attack Venezuela? At first sight, this seems to be a very strange thing to ask. Why should America attack Venezuela? After all, Venezuela is not attacking America. Nor is it a country that poses any real military threat to the United States. 

But a public campaign is now being waged that the Venezuelan government is actually a drug cartel and that it therefore poses a threat to the United States.

This clearly suggests that an attack on Venezuela is on the order of the day. 

This hypothesis has now received a very striking confirmation in an article published in The New York Times. In it we read the following:

“President Trump has called off efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement with Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, paving the way for a potential military escalation against drug traffickers or the government of Nicolás Maduro.”

‘The Art of the Deal’

At first sight, Donald Trump’s aggressive posture toward Venezuela seems to be in contradiction to the fact that he sent Ric Grenell, a special presidential envoy and executive director of the Kennedy Center, to negotiate a deal with Maduro.

In general, the man in the White House is not inclined to look for military solutions to problems. He far prefers to reach a deal. Let us remember that Donald J Trump was the author of the celebrated book that serves as the Holy Bible of the new religion of Trumpism, The Art of the Deal.

Behind Trump’s apparent aversion to wars is not some kind of moralistic pacifism. It has a far more material, not to say cynical, basis. To state matters simply: wars are expensive. A good deal is a lot cheaper – always assuming, of course, that such a deal can be reached.

It was therefore quite natural for him to send Mr Grenell to fashion a deal that would avoid the need for an unpleasant and expensive military conflict, while leaving American companies access to Venezuelan oil.

For his part, Maduro was desperately seeking a compromise. As recently as last month, he wrote a letter toTrump denying his country trafficked in drugs and offering to conduct further negotiations with the United States.

Grenell has been negotiating for months, publicly striking a far more conciliatory tone. But Rubio and his allies in the Trump administration have been pushing a strategy to drive Maduro from power.

Grenell was therefore complicating the administration’s work and frustrating his colleagues like Marco Rubio, who complained that Mr Grenell’s efforts were “unhelpful” and “creating confusion”.

Then, suddenly, the man in the White House pulled the rug from under his feet. The New York Times explains how “during a meeting with senior military leaders on Thursday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Grenell and instructed him that all diplomatic outreach, including his talks with Mr. Maduro, was to stop.”

What was the reason for this sudden decision? The article explains:

“Mr. Trump has grown frustrated with Mr. Maduro’s failure to accede to American demands to give up power voluntarily and the continued insistence by Venezuelan officials that they have no part in drug trafficking.”

In a notice to Congress, the Trump administration said the United States was engaged in a formal ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels. Taken with the decision to call off diplomacy, the notice gave a clear signal that the United States planned to escalate the military operations.

The drug cartels, the notice said, were terrorist organizations, and cartel members smuggling drugs were considered “unlawful combatants”.

These words can only be interpreted in one way: the United States now considers that it is at war with Venezuela.

The real war aims of the US

To this day, Washington has produced no satisfactory evidence to the effect that Venezuela’s government is, in fact, merely a cover for a drug cartel.

Whatever you might think of the government of Nicolás Maduro, this outrageous accusation clearly has absolutely no basis in fact. 

But it will undoubtedly have an effect on public opinion in America, which may be initially muted in its opposition to a military campaign against Venezuela. 

Although they are based on a transparent falsehood, they nevertheless furnish Washington with a casus belli – a pretext for war – a fact that is made abundantly clear by this article:

“American officials have said that the Trump administration has drawn up multiple military plans for an escalation. Those operations could also include plans designed to force Mr. Maduro from power. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser, has called Mr. Maduro an “illegitimate” leader and repeatedly cited a U.S. indictment of him on drug trafficking charges.

“Mr. Rubio had described Mr. Maduro as a “fugitive from American justice,” and the United States increased the reward for Mr. Maduro to $50 million.

“A White House official said Mr. Trump was prepared to use “every element of American power” to force Mr. Maduro from power to stop drugs from entering the United States and had been clear in his messages to Mr. Maduro to end Venezuelan narcotics trafficking.”

Here we have the real intention behind the dense smokescreen of lying propaganda, designed to conceal the aggressive and predatory intentions of the ruling clique in Washington.

The central objective is made quite clear in these statements: it is the overthrow of the present Venezuelan government, “to force Mr. Maduro from power”, using “every element of American power” to attain that end.

In other words, the intention is to bring about regime change in Venezuela, with the aim of the instalment of a pro-American regime in Caracas.

Is it possible that this is connected with the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the leader of the right-wing opposition in Venezuela precisely at this time? Since it would appear that the Nobel committee reached its decision some time ago, that is not at all inconceivable.

The view from Venezuela

We recently received a letter from a comrade in Venezuela, which is worth quoting:

“Trump is preparing the ground for an attack inside Venezuela. He recently announced that he is considering the ‘second phase’ of the anti-drug operation in the Caribbean, and the rhetoric no longer focuses solely on accusing Maduro of being a drug trafficker, but now speaks of the illegitimacy of his election. 

“One might think that they might be seeking to use pressure to force Maduro to concede on something, but Maduro is willing to concede on everything (oil, deportations, etc.), and what I believe is that the Republicans are determined to achieve a foreign policy victory by weakening Maduro, in addition to sending a message to China. 

“Even so, I believe the attack they will likely launch will be limited to bombing with drones or planes, which does not automatically mean Maduro’s downfall. But such bombings would escalate the pressure for a rupture.”

Washington is constantly increasing the pressure on Maduro, who is indeed constantly retreating. But this only shows weakness, and weakness always invites aggression.

A ground invasion would be a very risky proposition, and the forces presently available for such an attack are clearly insufficient for that purpose. Everything suggests that the first act will be followed up by some kind of aerial attack.

The next step might well be the targeting of the leaders of Venezuela. It is a tactic that has been perfected by the Israelis, known as a ‘decapitation exercise’. That, you will recall, was carried out by the Israelis in the first stages of the missile attacks against Iran.

Through the bombing of selected targets – especially government buildings – they aim to create a crisis of the regime. They hope that will lead to some kind of military coup that will topple Maduro. 

In order to facilitate this aim, they have put a price of $50 million on Maduro’s head – a tempting offer to the top layers of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, who are known for their addiction to the pursuit of life, liberty, and, above all, personal enrichment.

Can regime change succeed?

To this question, it is impossible to give a definite answer. It depends on many factors, especially the morale of the masses, which in the past always provided a solid bulwark against reaction. But times have changed.

The Venezuelan government has declared a state of emergency. It is trying to rally its forces, and is calling up reservists and taking other defensive measures.

But is Venezuela in a position to withstand an attack by US forces? That is not at all clear. Nicolás Maduro has long ago abandoned any pretence of standing for the original programme of the Bolivarian Revolution that was defended by the late Hugo Chávez.

Under Maduro’s government, the rich have become richer and the poor increasingly poorer. 

Although it still lays claim to the name of Chávez and the revolution, it is now a regime of bourgeois Bonapartism, that balances between the classes, but consistently turns to the right, attacking the gains of the revolution and the rights of workers and peasants.

To the degree that the masses feel alienated and depressed, support for the government has ebbed, forcing it to cling to power by the simple device of falsifying election results.

It is true that previous attempts by American imperialism to engineer regime change in Venezuela have failed, mainly because of the continued loyalty of large sections of the masses to the memory of the revolution.

But the loyalty of the masses cannot be taken for granted. And there must now be a great deal of weariness, disappointment and demoralisation.

A Bonapartist regime ultimately finds that its only reliable basis of support lies in the state apparatus itself, and particularly the upper layers of the army and the security forces.

It was always the most fatal flaw of Chávez’s policy to rely on the support of generals whose loyalty he thought he had ensured, partly by appeals to patriotism, but mainly by giving them lavish economic rewards and a privileged life.

But in the final analysis, such support can never be taken for granted. The Roman emperors who depended on the support of a privileged and pampered Praetorian Guard frequently found themselves suspended on the spears of those same guardians.

In more recent times, the fate of Salvador Allende who relied on the support of ‘loyal’, ‘democratic’ generals like Pinochet is only too well known.

Divisions in Washington

One of the reasons why it is so difficult to predict the actions of Donald Trump is that he continually vacillates, veering wildly, first in one direction, then in another, according to the pressures he receives from either side . 

This explains the frequent and abrupt nature of his zig-zags in the field of foreign policy. Just as in the cases of both Ukraine and the Middle East, so on the question of Venezuela, he is subject to different pressures.

There are clear signs of divisions inside the Trump administration. The New York Times states that:

“Advocates of diplomacy within the Trump administration worry that any further expansion of the anti-narcotics campaign into Venezuela itself, or any direct effort to force Mr. Maduro from power, would risk entangling the United States in a wider war.”

Has the final decision to intervene militarily against Venezuela been taken? It is impossible to say. But, at this moment in time, everything points in the direction of such an action.

At the Pentagon, some military lawyers, including international law experts, have raised concerns about the legality of the lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers. 

The Trump administration, through the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against “a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers” according to a report published by CNN. 

The opinion argues that the president is permitted to authorise deadly force against a broad range of cartels given that they pose an imminent threat to Americans. That list of cartels extends beyond the administration’s list of publicly designated terrorist organisations.

This legal opinion appears to justify an open-ended war against a secret list of groups, giving the president power to designate drug traffickers as enemy combatants and have them summarily killed without legal review.

What is our attitude?

Events are already unfolding in the Caribbean. Even as the negotiations seemed to be reaching a solution, the US military was swinging into action, attacking and sinking boats accused of running drugs on behalf of the Venezuelan government.

The notion that US imperialism would send a powerful fleet to the Caribbean, purely in order to sink a couple of small speedboats allegedly dealing in drugs, is clearly untenable. Far more serious objectives must be under consideration.

We have made it abundantly clear in previous material that we have absolutely no confidence in Nicolás Maduro, his policies or his government.

All this is true. But the overthrow of this regime cannot be entrusted to the hands of the imperialist gangsters in Washington and their local agents, who hide their counterrevolutionary intentions behind the false mask of ‘restoring democracy’.

The real aims of Washington are perfectly clear. The prospect of a renewal of the war against Iran – something that remains on the agenda – inevitably raises the spectre of a general crisis in the Middle East, severe disruption of oil production and the dislocation of trade, leading to a sharp increase in the price of energy.

This will have extremely serious consequences for the world economy, and therefore also for the United States. The temptation to get hold of Venezuela’s considerable oil reserves must therefore be a very serious element in Trump’s calculation.

The Americans aim to seize control of Venezuela’s oil wealth and place the country at the mercy of the predatory US monopolies.

Such a development can never represent the interests of the people of Venezuela. This aggression must be resisted by all means possible.

However, there is an even more powerful motive for America’s aggressive conduct. It is America’s fear of losing control of Latin America as a result of the rapid expansion of China’s presence. US imperialism feels the need to throw its weight around to demonstrate its economic and military power in order to check the advance of China. Its aim is to overawe the governments of Latin America and compel them to break with China and submit to Washington’s dictates.

It was our tendency that first put forward the slogan of, Hands off Venezuela! That slogan now becomes an imperative necessity.

Our position has been made clear in statements by the US and Venezuelan sections of the Revolutionary Communist International, which were issued as soon as the movement of US military assets to the Caribbean started. 

The United States finds itself trapped in an infernal dynamic, from which it appears unable to draw back. By a kind of fatal logic, irrespective of his intentions, Trump is being pushed remorselessly in the direction of further wars.

What now remains of the man who claimed to be the peace candidate? The man who was going to put an end to America’s involvement in ‘forever wars’? By now, those remarks have an ironic ring about them.

There can be many surprises in politics, as in life itself. There is a noisy campaign to grant the Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump. In the past there have been occasions when the Nobel Prize Committee has granted their award to two candidates. Is it possible that they may do so again?

This would be a bit like granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Count Dracula of Transylvania for services rendered to the cause of international blood transfusion services.

I suppose stranger things have happened. And against the illogicality of such a decision, we have to weigh the infinite degree of cowardice and servility of the European leaders in general, and of the Scandinavians in particular.

Who knows what will happen in such circumstances? However, it is probably far too soon for Donald Trump to be getting on the plane to Oslo to collect his prize.