The newly appointed U.S.
National Security Advisor John Bolton is expected to take a hardline
stance against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his
administration, it has been revealed.
The former ambassador to
the United Nations was described by a senior U.S. official as someone
who "always emphasized how Cuba and Venezuela and Nicaragua have
undermined U.S. interests throughout the region."
"He's a warmonger,
and Latin Americans get nervous when American presidents tend to lean
toward military versus diplomatic solutions," a National
Security Council official for former President Barack Obama told the
Miami Herald. "It's a militaristic style that won't go down well
in Latin America."
During a 2013 hearing on
Syria and Iran, Bolton claimed that Caracas was protecting Iranian
smugglers: "These are expert smugglers... the largest Iranian
diplomatic facility in the world is in Caracas, Venezuela...They are
laundering their money through the Venezuelan banks."
Bolton has also urged
that stronger sanctions be imposed on Cuba. During his term as
undersecretary of state, he named the island on his "axis of
evil" list, claiming that Havana was attempting to develop
biological weapons.
During a speech to
members of the Heritage Foundation, Bolton said: "The United
States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological
warfare research and development effort,'' Bolton said in a speech to
the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Days before it was
announced that Bolton would replace Herbert Raymond McMaster as U.S.
President Donald Trump's national security advisor, Venezuela's
Minister of Defense Vladmiri Padrino Lopez warned U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo to avoid repeating his predecessor's mistakes of
insinuating a military coup in Venezuela.
"If Mike Pompeo
comes with the same policy that (former Secretary of State Rex)
Tillerson initiated, with the same line of attack – of aggression –
against sovereignty, against a population and its armed forces, he
will again be faced with a wall," Padrino said.
"There cannot be a
military coup here: we are in the middle of the 21st century; I need
to say this to whoever talks about a military coup that we are in
2018… A military coup? This is part of the past."
Source: Telesur.
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"John Bolton was by far the most dangerous man we had in the entire eight years of the Bush Administration," former Bush chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter tweeted last Friday, before the announcement. "Hiring him as the president's top national security advisor is an invitation to war, perhaps nuclear war."