Pompeo: All Constraint on Action in Venezuela Is Lifted

With Venezuela’s government ordering the withdrawal of the last of US embassy personnel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to spin it as a positive for the continued efforts to impose regime change there.

Pompeo said that “time is drawing short” for Venezuela, while saying the presence of a US embassy had been a “constraint on US policy,” and one that no longer exists now that the staff is being recalled.

Exactly what this will mean from a policy standpoint is unclear, though clearly the administration wants to keep reminding everybody that military intervention is possible Elliot Abrams confirmed this in his own comments, saying that the option to attack Venezuela will always remain on the table.

Administration officials say that they remain hopeful to impose change within Venezuela in some way other than military intervention. Weeks of demanding change and threatening to attack clearly isn’t working, however, and officials seem bound and determined to Venezuela in general, and Venezuela’s oil-generating capacity in particular, in hands more friendly to US policy.