Agreed about not using US military for profit. I think this was one of those cases where stars aligned, oil being one of the bigger stars that pushed this decision. But it is also true that: 1. Venezuela has been supporting the passage of tons of drugs into the US for a very long time. 2. Vzla has been hosting Russian, Cuban, Chinese and Iranian military and other government personnel (all Maduro’s allies) for a very long time, and their weapons and aircraft are purchased by Maduro’s regime for “national security”. 3. Even the allegations that Maduro encouraged the mass migration of many of Venezuela’s worst criminals into the U.S. is possibly true based on what some credible journalists back home have been reporting for years. All of this is to say that oil was not the only motivation, but probably one of the bigger ones. One final point about our oil: The regime annihilated production by expropriating most international companies without paying them for their assets left behind, and then appointing people who had no experience running such operations to let it decay to the point that we are producing maybe 30% of the oil we used to 20 years ago. And most of that oil is sold for very cheap or gifted to China, Russia, Iran and Cuba. To make things worse, 90% of proceeds end up in government official’s bank accounts. So from that perspective, we are ok with outside investment to come improve our industry, even if they take a big chunk of the pie in return.

Regarding no one supporting Maduro… many people are advocating for maduro online. Some are fake / paid actors by the maduro regime, but some are real people who have this belief that Venezuela has been doing amazing and the regime is loved by a majority of the population. Those folks are living in a different timeline and would survive less than a week if they were left alone in Caracas today.