Operation Absolute Dissolve
Struggling at home, Donald Trump pulls the same stunt as every predecessor: unleash a military escapade abroad. Because fixing America's festering internal messes would require real effort.
Donald Trump pulled off one of the most jaw-dropping comebacks in American political history in 2024. One of his flagship campaign promises? No more sparking off pointless wars.
Just six months into his term, he’s bombing Iran on behalf of that pint-sized Israeli client, which idiotically kicked off a war it couldn’t even wrap up, let alone win. And of course, those mega-rich American Jewish donors and pro-Israel lobbies had absolutely zero influence on that decision.
A year after he plops back into the Oval Office, it’s Venezuela’s turn to get roasted, complete with the abduction of President Maduro. Remember, his 2013 election campaign was masterminded by Havas (part of French Bolloré group) and some guy named Ismaël Emelien, who later helped engineer Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 victory before getting the boot in 2019, courtesy of Brigitte Macron’s nagging.
Here’s the kicker: that regime-change bombed spectacularly, since the Chavist party—co-founded by Maduro himself— is still clinging to power like a bad rash on a vivid orange face. Let’s float a wild theory: what if those Bolivarian revolutionaries, fed up with Maduro’s genuine slide into authoritarian thuggery, served him up as a sacrificial lamb just to hang onto their seats, knowing damn well no one’s prying’em away anytime soon? That’s the peril of screeching “narco-dictator” while blissfully ignoring political realities—especially when most Venezuelans pin their abject poverty on Uncle Sam’s meddling. Oh, and hey, the Iraqis were spot-on with the same blame game back in 2003. We know how it fared.
Update 01/06/2026: Damn, it ain’t no wild theory but facts.
Now, picture this. Was it China that told Trump: look, you’ve been bogged down for six months with your Big Beautiful Armada sitting off Caracas. The Gerald Ford must sail back to port. We’ll give you Maduro; we’ll talk to the Bolivarists. You send in Delta Force to extract him. A few flashes and some noise for the show, so you can pull back claiming victory at home. But no regime change—we’re going to share the oil.
As for those yammering on about the Monroe Doctrine, they’re historical illiterate. It was explicitly a rejection of any regime-change shenanigans on the American continent, as the fifth U.S. president laid out in his 1823 address: “It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America... We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”
As for Ukraine, not only did Trump utterly fail to wrap up the war in a month—as he endlessly bragged he would—but if we’re to swallow the mainstream American press hook, line, and sinker (whether that’s wise is another matter entirely), he green-lit a CIA-orchestrated barrage of drone strikes deep inside Russia, plus some swashbuckling acts of piracy against Russian merchant ships in international waters. Because nothing says “peace in our time” like escalating the very conflict you promised to end overnight.
Venezuela was already a simmering powder keg of latent civil war long before Hugo Chávez rolled into power in 1998—a tinderbox of political volatility and insurgent fervor. So naturally, Operation Absolute Resolve is barreling toward an Absolute Dissolve: Trump’s grand scheme is to slap together a provisional administration in Caracas, straight out of the Iraq playbook. Halliburton, DynCorp, and the whole Wall Street plunder squad are licking their chops again, ready to “rebuild” with mega-contracts funded by... local oil riches, of course—not costing the American taxpayer a dime! Who on earth still buys that fairy tale?
Kidnapping a head of state is one neat trick; occupying and controlling an entire country is quite another feat. Apparently, the stinging lessons from the humiliating quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq went in one ear and out the other.
Beyond the glaring fact that the U.S. military lacks the manpower to lock down Venezuela’s sprawling territory—let alone secure the oil wells, ports, and infrastructure (even with mercenary backups)—it’s now laughably hypocritical to wag a finger at China if it ever fancied invading Taiwan. Which, let’s be clear, Beijing won’t bother with: they know Taipei, like Hong Kong before it, will inevitably fall into their lap without firing a shot—the island never truly left. And imagine if Putin decided to have a bit of fun and snatch Zelensky? Cue the guffaws and thunderous applause across the entire non-Western world.
We won’t even dwell on the catastrophic state of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure after years of crippling sanctions. Reviving production to meaningful levels over a decade would gulp down hundreds of billions in investment, with profitability not even guaranteed in thirty years. As Jacques Sapir, the French economist, aptly reminds us, not all oils are created equal: Venezuelan crude isn’t premium Brent—it’s heavy, sulfur-laden sludge that demands ultra-complex refining with heaps of catalysts in specialized cracking towers. Fine for petrochemicals, perhaps, but demand there isn’t as voracious as for fuels.
And American public opinion? Dead set against any military meddling or occupation in Venezuela—as our colleague Michael Shellenberger rightly highlights in his piece.
We won’t pile on about the foreign policy motives behind what looks far more like the snatching of Manuel Noriega in January 1990—right on cue for midterm election year, with a floundering George H.W. Bush desperate for a win—than the full-scale Iraq invasion of 2003. Call it the January surprise. Grabbing the oil; shoving back against China’s dominance in South America; ousting a leader who dared refuse dollar payments for his crude: sure, all that’s true, but it’s window dressing.
A great power’s foreign policy is chiefly dictated by domestic political interests. That’s especially glaring in the U.S., where we conveniently forget that the electoral calendar means a president, even with both chambers in his pocket, can’t truly push his agenda without flipping those midterms. Two years isn’t excessive for a fresh administration to grasp the levers and wrestle control of that bureaucratic behemoth known as the federal governement. The blob does not turn on a dime.
And here we are in early 2026, with Trump—facing his own brewing headaches—just pulling off the spectacular abduction of Maduro, mirroring Noriega’s fate almost to the day. Drug charges as the pretext, a quick raid to bag the “narco-dictator,” and suddenly the administration’s got a shiny foreign “victory” to parade before the voters. Because why grapple with the endless grind at home when you can stage a dramatic overseas smash-and-grab, rally the base, and distract from the mess? Classic wag-the-dog, updated for the TikTok era. The parallels aren’t coincidence; they’re the timeless playbook of presidents in peril.
The man with no plan
Everyone’s got that tired old adage on the brain: “It’s the economy, stupid!” And damn right—Americans still vote with their wallets first, no matter how many flags you wave or enemies you invent abroad. But heading into 2026, the wallet’s looking a bit threadbare.
Slowing growth—GDP crawling at under 2% increase in 2026, per most forecasters (Blue Chip at 1.9%, Philly Fed at 1.8%, Deloitte matching it). That’s the hangover from the post-covid sugar rush, not some roaring Trump miracle. Optimists like Goldman Sachs squeak out 2.6% thanks to tax cuts and rate tweaks, but even they admit it’s fragile.
Fragile job market—Unemployment ticking up to 4.5%, spot-on with surveys from Deloitte to the Philly Fed. Hiring’s cooled, firms are hoarding cash amid AI hype and tariff chaos, and that “soft landing” feels more like stalling on the runway.
Stubborn inflation—Down from 2022 peaks, sure. Core PCE forecasts hover 2.4-2.8%, with tariffs keeping prices sticky above the Fed’s sacred 2%. Pressure on rates means no relief for borrowers, just more squeeze on everyday folks.
Ballooning fiscal pressure—The federal deficit’s exploding, fueled by debt service and runaway spending. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”—that massive 2025 tax-cut extravaganza extending the 2017 goodies—had zero short-term pop and looks set to add trillions long-term, with little bang for the buck. CBO and others warn of painful adjustments ahead. Who needs fiscal responsibility when you can kick the can?
Private investment—AI and tech keep pumping corporate spending, propping up the hype machine. But macro headwinds—those sky-high tariffs, elevated rates—cap the upside. It’s all froth until proven otherwise.
Financial markets—Indices hitting records? Bliss. But everyone’s whispering the obvious: AI’s a massive speculative bubble, echoing the late-’90s dot-com mania. Investors are eyeing each other warily, fingers hovering over the sell button, waiting for the first one to blink and trigger the rush for the exits. Nothing screams “sustainable” like valuations detached from reality.
In short, the economy’s sputtering into midterm territory with voters grumpy about costs, jobs, and that nagging feeling the boom was borrowed from tomorrow. Trump’s foreign adventures might grab headlines, but back home? It’s still the economy—and it’s looking pretty stupid right now.
But here’s the real gut-punch: the bottomless abyss of American distrust in their own institutions—a rot that didn’t kick off with Trump’s election, mind you, but one he turbocharged despite swaggering in with near carte blanche to “drain the swamp.” Top of the list? His brazen refusal to release the Epstein files, just as he solemnly promised. Why expose the elite’s filthy underbelly when you can keep the skeletons dancing in the closet?
Once again, the trafficking and sexual exploitation of underage girls isn’t the juicy core here—oh no, that’s just the lurid bait. We’re talking industrial-scale financial criminality: frauds, scams, epic tax dodging, money laundering etc. And this web of political corruption traces its roots straight back to the Reagan era and the Iran-Contra fiasco, that glorious cocktail of illegal arms deals, covert ops, and off-the-books slush funds that screamed Israel and “deep state” before it was a bumper sticker.
Ronald Reagan owed his entire political ascent to entertainment industry kingpins whose cozy ties to organized crime are as undeniable as they are damning—think MCA, the Hollywood powerhouse that propped him up while rubbing shoulders with mobsters, all while he played the folksy Gipper on screen and snitched on “commies” to the FBI.
It’s a legacy of backroom deals that makes today’s swamp look like a kiddie pool, and Trump? He just poured in more muck, leashwalked by Netanyahu.
Ah, the Epstein saga— that sprawling mafia syndicate where America’s financial overlords are dunked neck-deep in the slime, with Israel popping up like a persistent bad penny at every turn. It’s the rotten root of those “mega-donors” who’ve been puppeteering U.S. elections for four decades, a crumbling empire where throwing cash at campaigns and owning the media megaphone no longer guarantees you can rig the ballot box like clockwork.
Think about it: Epstein wasn’t just a sleazy financier; he was the grease in a machine brokering deals for Israeli cyberweapons, meddling in foreign elections, and cozying up to foreign intelligence circles.
And those big donors? They’ve been the lifeblood of this beast, funneling fortunes to sway votes while the system teeters—ironically, amid record-shattering dark money floods in 2024 that only amplified their grip, not loosened it.
But hey, with the Epstein files finally trickling out under Trump’s reluctant watch—signed into law in late 2025 but dragged out incomplete, peppered with his own name—the facade is cracking.
No wonder the old playbook’s failing; voters are wising up to the puppet strings, and all the billions in the world can’t buy back that lost trust.
Israel is the jagged reef that’s about to splinter the Trump administration to smithereens if it doesn’t veer off course—and fast. It’s the flashpoint where everything converges, the toxic core of the whole mess. The majority of Americans, left and right alike, have finally had enough of this knee-jerk, unconditional slobbering over Tel Aviv.
“America First” rings hollow when it’s clearly “Israel Über Alles” in practice, and the public isn’t swallowing that bitter pill anymore—polls scream it from the rooftops, with favorable views of the Israeli government tanking to 35%, sympathy splitting evenly between Israelis and Palestinians, and even young Republicans bolting from the unconditional-aid bandwagon.
Above all, it’s the glaring proof that the “deep state” Trump vowed to throttle is still kicking, healthier than ever. The Washington deathmatch raging between reformers hell-bent on gutting the security and intel agencies and the status-quo guardians—boil it down to the brutal tug-of-war pitting Tulsi Gabbard boosters as Director of National Intelligence against John Ratcliffe’s CIA loyalists—remains deadlocked, no knockout blow in sight.
Maduro’s snatch-and-grab? Classic CIA op, all limited firepower and minimal fuss, screaming spook fingerprints. A Pyrrhic “victory” that’ll fizzle into zilch, except maybe rallying South America into a full-throated anti-Yankee chorus.
Toss in Kash Patel’s disastrous FBI tenure—reforming precisely squat—and the bungled, head-scratching probe into Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and the American deep state looks like it’s teetering on the cliff’s edge.
In its plunge, it’ll drag Trump down too—he lacked the spine to axe the dead weight, too busy schmoozing for funds to build a glitzy ballroom.
We’re on the cusp of a radical political realignment in the U.S., one so massive it’s hard to wrap your head around, and those November midterms are primed to deliver shocks that’ll make your hair stand on end. A fresh bipartisan consensus flipping the bird to the neocons, big money and the establishment is brewing for real—will it show up at the polls?
Operation Absolute Dissolve, we’re telling you.
Unless Donald Trump’s draining the swamp by letting its inhabitants run off the cliff like the lemurains they are. Given the man’s seasoned unpredictability, can it be ruled out?