Colonel Wilkerson: “Israel Is Behind Trump’s Escalation on Venezuela”

India & Global Left, 15/11/2025

Transcribed and summarized by Tlaxcala

Wilkerson explains why the U.S. is escalating against Venezuela, how close Washington is to a possible military intervention, and why he believes Israel is playing a driving role behind Trump’s Venezuela strategy. We also explore bigger geopolitical questions: • Does the U.S. have a real grand strategy after losing the tariff war to China? • Will NATO retreat from its failing venture in Ukraine? • What does Syria’s effective re-absorption into the U.S. Middle East architecture mean for the region? • Is Washington reacting to global shifts—or blindly escalating on multiple fronts? If you want a deep dive into U.S. empire, great-power competition, and the hidden actors shaping today’s conflicts, this interview with Colonel Wilkerson is essential.

 

The episode opens with a welcome to viewers and an appeal to support the channel through subscriptions, membership, or donations. The host then introduces the evening’s guest, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. The conversation begins with an overview of U.S. escalation against Venezuela, including military buildups in the Caribbean, operations originating from Puerto Rico under the banner of a so-called "war on narco-terrorism," and intensified propaganda efforts. Figures in the Venezuelan opposition—such as María Corina Machado—are described as promising Venezuelan assets to U.S. corporations, while President Trump has been explicit in seeking regime change in Caracas. The central question posed to Wilkerson is how far Washington is willing to go.

Wilkerson responds by recalling his experience during the George W. Bush administration, noting that many of the practices of that era are now being repeated with even greater depth, breadth, and illegality. He invokes the legacy of the Nuremberg Trials, reminding viewers that their primary purpose—articulated by Justice Jackson—was to stop wars of aggression. This principle formed the moral foundation for the UN and the Geneva Conventions of 1948, which sought to impose standards on the conduct of war and establish international criminal law. According to Wilkerson, the United States is now dismantling, "peg by peg, thread by thread," the entire post-World War II international legal framework. He argues that the U.S. has become the world’s chief perpetrator of wars of aggression, with Venezuela being the most recent target.

Wilkerson explains that U.S. covert involvement in Venezuela escalated in 2016 when Trump signed a presidential finding authorizing CIA operations on the ground. Obama’s 2015 declaration that Venezuela was a national security threat to the United States also paved the way for sanctions and interventionist policies. Wilkerson stresses that both Democratic and Republican administrations have followed the same trajectory. He highlights a troubling trend: the creation of new legal rationales by the Department of Justice to justify extrajudicial killings at sea—killings that have already claimed dozens of lives, including impoverished fishermen misidentified as smugglers. People in Colombia and Venezuela are now reportedly afraid to fish for fear of being killed. This, Wilkerson says, represents the destruction of international law and due process.

Turning to the possibility of a military intervention, Wilkerson describes the situation as deeply alarming. He asserts that Israel is heavily involved in U.S. intelligence operations related to Venezuela, having participated since at least 2016. According to him, Trump receives misleading or manipulated intelligence not from official U.S. agencies but from intermediaries such as Laura Loomer and figures connected to the Israeli intelligence apparatus, financed by actors within the Venezuelan opposition. In Wilkerson’s view, this intelligence pipeline circumvents the established intelligence community, enabling operations driven by external agendas.

He elaborates on the rise of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which has grown into a powerful, semi-autonomous military structure closely integrated with the CIA. This arrangement allows the CIA to conduct direct-action operations while avoiding congressional oversight, since the military technically carries out the actions. Wilkerson provides historical examples—from Mogadishu to Afghanistan and Iraq—where Special Operations forces conducted unilateral missions without the knowledge of regional commanders. He argues that similar dynamics are now visible in Venezuela, where special operations personnel aboard a “mother ship” off the Venezuelan coast conduct clandestine missions without the awareness or approval of the conventional military command at Southern Command. This, he says, represents an “unbelievable” and dangerous breakdown of civilian and military oversight.

The host notes that Venezuela’s military is extremely politicized and integrated into the Bolivarian process—unlike Chile’s in 1973—making a coup far more difficult. Wilkerson agrees, stating that the Venezuelan armed forces have remained loyal and that U.S. efforts to bribe or infiltrate them have likely failed. Any intervention would face not only a unified Venezuelan military but also widespread popular opposition to U.S. involvement. Wilkerson predicts that a U.S. attempt at regime change in Venezuela would result in a prolonged guerrilla war that the United States would eventually lose, inflicting enormous suffering on Venezuelans and possibly Colombians as well.

The interview then shifts to China. Wilkerson argues that the United States has “no strategy whatsoever” regarding China. What exists instead is a collection of individuals—citing Steve Bannon and others—who believe they have a strategy but whose ideas are incoherent. China, he says, is advancing globally not through aggression but by moving into spaces left vacant by catastrophic U.S. policy failures, especially in Latin America. Countries are turning toward China because Washington has alienated them. In Wilkerson’s view, Trump badly misjudged his own diplomatic encounters with Chinese President Xi Jinping, believing meetings went well when Xi was in fact outmaneuvering him.

Wilkerson goes on to discuss Europe, predicting that current governments will be swept away within eighteen months due to unsustainable military commitments and economic pressures. As European populations realize that devoting 5% of GDP to NATO means sacrificing social services, public education, agriculture, and healthcare, they will demand political change. The result could be a return to pre-World War II fragmentation or the emergence of a new European security framework—potentially including Russia, though this would be extremely difficult after years of hostility and warfare.

The conversation turns to Ukraine, where Wilkerson argues that Trump is receiving dangerously misleading information—primarily from Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham and his associates, Wilkerson says, are telling Trump that the goal is to “bleed Russia” at any cost, even at the expense of Ukrainian lives and territory. They insist that sustained pressure will eventually lead to Putin’s collapse, a claim Wilkerson rejects. He asserts that Putin is actually under pressure from the far right, which demands a more aggressive prosecution of the war and even the destruction of Ukraine if necessary. Wilkerson emphasizes that the United States is the only power capable of halting the conflict, yet it refuses to do so. He warns that Ukraine harbors over 200,000 hardcore far-right militants—Bandera adherents—who remain behind the lines conserving their strength and who will dominate whatever is left of Ukraine after the war, ensuring continued instability.

Next, the discussion addresses Syria. Wilkerson observes a major geopolitical shift: Syria is being reintegrated into the U.S.–Israeli–Gulf strategic architecture. Key assets such as the port of Tartus are being reassigned to UAE interests, and areas previously under Russian agreements are being reorganized. Foreign fighters with takfiri ideologies are reportedly being redeployed to the Lebanese border to confront Hezbollah. Al-Sharaa is being courted by figures like Tom Barrack and welcomed in Washington-aligned circles. This suggests, Wilkerson argues, a broader strategy aimed at dismantling the “Axis of Resistance.” He believes Netanyahu has struck an understanding with Trump: if Israel takes on Hezbollah and stabilizes Syria in a direction favorable to U.S. interests, Trump will confront Iran directly on Israel’s behalf.

Wilkerson considers this extremely dangerous. He describes discussions in some circles advocating pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Iran using submarine-launched cruise missiles, with the U.S. providing support and cover. These strategists imagine rebuilding Israel afterward as a secure Jewish state, believing that Iran’s destruction would resolve the region’s strategic problems. Wilkerson fears this thinking could lead to nuclear war. He also notes cryptic comments suggesting that the Trump administration does not expect to leave office in three years—either because successors like Vance would continue the same policies for another eight years or because they anticipate remaining in power indefinitely.

The interview concludes with a reflection on the failed attempt in 2021 [assault on the Capitol] to alter the trajectory of U.S. governance. Wilkerson claims that the failure occurred partly because the U.S. military did not support those efforts. Today, he warns, there is a deliberate effort to reshape the military so that it will not resist similar attempts in the future. The host observes that this amounts to a full takeover of the state in the manner envisioned by far-right or far-left movements. Wilkerson ends by expressing deep concern about the direction of U.S. power and the dangerous path it is carving for the world.