by Jacob G. Hornberger

March 6, 2026

In the midst of the illegal and unconstitutional deadly and destructive war of aggression that President Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA) have launched against Iran, Trump is beseeching Iranian dissidents to rise up and take control over their government. The hope is that the dissidents will establish a regime that will be a loyal and patriotic member of the U.S. Empire, one that is always prepared and ready to come to the aid of the Empire whenever called upon to do so.

That, in fact, has been the purpose of the brutal economic sanctions that the U.S. Empire imposed on Iran beginning in 1979. That was the year that the Iranian people rose up and violently ousted the Shah of Iran, who had been installed into power by the CIA in a coup in 1953.

That CIA coup had succeeded in destroying Iran’s experiment with democracy by ousting the democratically elected prime minister of the country, Mohammad Mossadegh, a man widely admired and respected in Iran, and replacing him with what became the nasty and brutal U.S.-trained and U.S.-supported tyranny of the Shah.

Finally, in 1979, the Iranian people had had enough of the Shah’s brutal and torturous U.S.-supported tyranny, and they revolted. Unfortunately, they were unable to get the democratic system back that the CIA had destroyed in 1953. The Iranian people instead got a brutal theocratic anti-U.S. regime that was arguably worse than that of the Shah.

U.S. national-security officials have never forgiven the Iranian people for ousting the CIA’s selection to be their dictator. That 1979 revolution launched a decades-long obsession among U.S. officials — an obsession very similar to their decades-long obsession regarding Cuba — in which the Iranian people have been targeted with economic privation and death by starvation or illness. That’s what the sanctions have been all about — “persuading” the Iranian people to do what Trump is exhorting them to do today — rise up and take control over their government and become a loyal and patriotic member of the U.S. Empire.

But let’s now turn our attention to Venezuela, which was big in the news just prior to Trump’s, the Pentagon’s, and Israel’s war on Iran. For decades, the U.S. Empire, led by the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, have imposed and enforced a brutal system of economic sanctions on Venezuela, just as they have with Iran. The idea has been, as with Iran, to “persuade” the Venezuelan people to rise up and oust their socialist-communist regime, one that U.S. officials have also designated to be a “narco-terrorist” regime. Such “persuasion” came in the form of extreme economic privation, just as with Iran, especially given that the U.S. sanctions combined with the crisis and chaos brought on by Venezuela’s socialist economic system.

Rather than oust their socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime, however, which would have meant tens of thousands of revolutionaries killed, the Venezuelan people decided to flee the country. An estimated eight million of them fled Venezuela, many of whom came to the United States in a desperate attempt to save their lives from the horrific economic distress caused by the U.S. government and its brutal system of economic sanctions. But when they got here, they were treated with disdain and forced to return to Venezuela (or to incarceration and torture in El Salvador), where they, once again, faced the choice of death by starvation and illness or violently rising up against their regime and ousting it in favor of a pro-U.S. regime.

However, no longer are Trump, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA calling on the Venezuelan people to rise up against their socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime. Why is that? Because as soon as the Pentagon and the CIA had captured, kidnapped, and renditioned Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to New York City to stand trial for supposedly violating U.S. drug laws and U.S. gun laws while serving as president of Venezuela, Trump and the national-security establishment made an about-face and decided to maintain, support, and partner with the socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime they the U.S. Empire had been condemning and opposing for decades.

That about-face has got to be one of the most fascinating aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the entire history of the U.S. national-security state. Who would have ever thought that the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA would be partnering with a socialist-communist regime that they had spent decades trying to oust with their brutal system of economic sanctions? Who would have ever thought that they would be protecting and working with a brutal narco-terrorist regime, one that they had been accusing of actively violating U.S. drug laws and U.S. terrorism laws for decades.

But what is also just as fascinating has been the response of the American right-wing. They have responded as if all this strange, aberrant behavior is perfectly normal. For decades, American conservatives have decried and condemned the socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime in Venezuela. Right-wingers have been vociferous proponents of economic sanctions on the Venezuelan people, just as they have with the economic sanctions against the Iranian people (and the Cuban people). No amount of suffering among the Venezuelan people (or the Iranian people or the Cuban people) has been considered to be too great. If they wanted to alleviate their suffering, the argument went, all they had to do was rise up and oust their regime.

But what now? What if the Venezuelan people decide to rise up and oust their socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime — the regime that they have been opposing — the one they defeated in the last election — the one that U.S. officials have long been exhorting them to oust and replace with a loyal and patriotic pro-U.S. regime?

Presumably, the U.S. government will exhort Venezuela’s communist-socialist, narco-terrorist regime to smash them, kill them, incarcerate them, torture them, and execute them. After all, under Venezuelan law, it’s illegal to rise up and violently oust the Venezuelan regime! And now that regime has the most powerful government in the world maintaining it, supporting it, and partnering with it.

All of this is obviously perfectly okay with the American right-wing, which I find absolutely fascinating. In fact, while they don’t come out and say it publicly, the Venezuelan opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, has effectively become an enemy of not only the unelected, illegitimate, socialist-communist, narco-terrorist Venezuelan regime but also an enemy of the U.S. Empire that is maintaining and partnering with it. I suspect that this reality has hit some in the Venezuelan opposition but I don’t think it’s hit Machado yet, any more than it has hit American right-wingers, who clearly blindly, loyally, and patriotically support whatever Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment say and do, no matter how dark, evil, immoral, and hypocritical it might be.