Maduro being punished for de-dollarisation initiative

The United States is targeting more than what meets the eye in Venezuela. The narco-terrorism may just be an alibi. Studies point out that of all the cocaine that enters the United States, only 1% comes from Venezuela. That shouldn’t be the reason enough for the superpower to mobilise its naval armada against the tiny Latin American nation and abduct its President Nicolas Maduro, an act that sets a dangerous precedent. 

It all looks like a rewind of what happened in Iraq in 2003 when President Saddam Hussein was accused of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction way back in 2003. Having bombarded Iraq for a month, the NATO forces didn’t find any iota of proof of Saddam having amassed any such weapons. It dawned much later that Saddam was ‘punished’ for having shifted its oil deals from the US Dollar to the Euro. 

Iran too has walked out of the Dollar’s trap and now sells its oil against a bundle of strong currencies such as Euro, Yuan or Rouble. As for Iran, the US has been using the charge of nuclear proliferation, something Iran denies. But then Iran is a different ball game altogether. A nation with nearly 100 million people and battle-hardened as it is, it has built stronger defences against the US threat and appears less intimidated as far as ‘regime change’ threat is concerned. 

There were indications of Venezuela too unhinging itself from Dollar since it became a candidate for the members of the BRICS—a combine of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—nations that pay for oil in Yuan, Euros and Rouble. For Venezuela, a nation sitting over huge reservoir of oil, almost 17% of the Earth’s total, any transfer from Dollar to Yuan or any other currency, would have posed more serious threat to the stability of the US currency. 

Oil being the most traded commodity across the globe, the leverage and sinews it lends to the US Dollar and the United States finances is formidable. It was legendary Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State during President Nixon, who had persuaded the oil rich Arab Sheikhdoms to opt for US Dollar as the currency of exchange for oil deals. It is when term ‘petrodollar’ came into vogue. Since then the Dollar had the unchallenged sway till Iran shifted to Euro. 

A similar move by Iraq led the US to mobilise NATO allies to invade Iraq and replace the Saddam Regime. Libya’s Col. Qaddafi had come up with its ‘Gold Dinar’ blueprint as the pan-African currency and had been mobilising support for its acceptance across Africa. Qaddafi’s Libya was bombed out of the 21st century in 2011. Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails confirm this was the primary reason for intervention. 

‘Gold Dinar’ idea died with Qaddafi. The badly fractured nation now witnesses trading of slaves in its bazaars. Maduro’s stirrings of revolt against Dollar were already evident as the nation was in the process of switching over to Yuan in its dealing with China since 2018, the largest customer for its oil. They were building direct payment channels with China that bypass SWIFT entirely. China’s CIPS is now accepted by 4,800 banks across the 185 nations and is all likely to emerge as a challenger to the SWIFT.

The US could scarcely tolerate the bold initiative towards the de-dollarization from its backyard. Hence, the bombardment and the abduction of the head of the state. It is now for the world nations to see how deceptive veil of narco-terrorism shields the sinister designs of undermining the sovereignty of third world nations by the only remaining global power.