US facing second Vietnam in Venezuela – expert

Decades of anti-imperialism would fuel resistance to any American attempt to establish control over the country, Daniel Shaw has told RT

Any prolonged US effort to control Venezuela would likely face fierce resistance similar to what Washington encountered during the Vietnam or Iraq wars, Daniel Shaw, a professor of Latin American Studies at City University of New York, has told RT.

In an interview aired on Sunday, the scholar suggested that Venezuelans would not accept foreign rule following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during an unprecedented US raid on Caracas.

“This is going to spill open into a type of Vietnamese resistance or Iraqi resistance,” Shaw said.

Shaw said that on top of Maduro’s “anti-imperialist leadership,” Venezuela’s policies had been shaped by nearly three decades of what he described as political training in “chavismo,” referring to the socialist policies of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“The Venezuelan people … are never going to allow for the US to take them over,” he said.

Asked about the most feasible scenario if the US remains in charge for an extended period, Shaw framed the potential confrontation as a “David versus Goliath” struggle, adding that protests and demonstrations were likely and raised the prospect of “pockets of guerrilla resistance over time,” while acknowledging Venezuela was militarily outmatched.

READ MORE: Lavrov holds phone call with Venezuelan vice president

He also acknowledged that international condemnation and declarations of solidarity – including from Russia and several regional powers – would be unlikely on their own to alter the situation. “If there’s no resistance from within the US military, it would be very difficult to imagine that the Venezuelan people could defeat what looks like a US colonial occupation,” he added.

US President Donald Trump has said Washington would temporarily “run” Venezuela following Maduro’s kidnapping, prompting backlash from Caracas. Washington has so far refrained from a large-scale invasion of the country, but maintains a significant military presence in the Caribbean.

The US wars in Vietnam and Iraq became cautionary tales against open-ended foreign interventions after dragging on for years, killing thousands of US troops, consuming trillions of dollars, and ending without a clear outcome.