➡ The article is an interview with Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, discussing the U.S.’s military presence in Venezuela and potential conflicts with Iran. Johnson suggests that the U.S.’s military options in Venezuela are limited and that their presence may have actually strengthened support for Maduro, Venezuela’s leader. He also discusses the potential for conflict with Iran, stating that Israel would need to use a nuclear weapon to significantly impact Iran’s underground ballistic missile force. Johnson criticizes Trump’s approach to these situations, questioning whether he is a peace or war president.
➡ The article discusses the complex global conflicts involving the U.S., Iran, Russia, China, and Ukraine. It criticizes the U.S.’s reliance on military force and expensive weaponry, which it argues are ineffective and outdated. The article also discusses Russia’s demands in the Ukraine conflict, stating that Russia will not back down on its territorial claims. It concludes by suggesting that the U.S.’s attempts at peace negotiations are insincere and unlikely to succeed.
➡ Check out the link below this video to explore Sonar 21, a useful resource packed with information. Larry Johnson, a guest on the Trends Journal, wishes everyone happy holidays and a great Christmas.

Hi, everyone. I’ve been Demarche here. Please go to trendsjournal.com for the world’s best trend forecasts and news analysis. It takes two seconds to do. Please, trendsjournal.com. It helps support us. Also, go to trendsinnews.substack.com. You can find that link below. Follow us on Substack to get daily updates about what’s relevant in the news cycle. And in two seconds, please, just go below. Click share, like, and follow to help us spread the word on YouTube. It’s little things like that that help us grow. Thank you so much, and Merry Christmas to everyone out there, and happy and safe New Year.

Hello, I’m Edmund Demarche with the Trends Journal. I’m happy to be interviewing Larry Johnson today. He’s a former CIA analyst and author at Sonar 21. Larry Johnson, thanks for joining the Trends Journal. So close through the Christmas holiday. Yeah, always a pleasure. Thanks for the invite. I want to get right into it, Larry. I was reading articles about Trump’s military and positioning in Venezuela off the coast in the Caribbean. And I’m hearing more people talk about Trump not allowing himself in off-ramp when it comes to Venezuela. He’s so invested right now in Venezuela. He puts so many military assets off the coast there.

Has Trump eliminated any possibility of an off-ramp without removing Maduro from power? No, I don’t think so. I mean, he’s, you know, we’ve already seen him in the Red Sea against the Houthis. He just declares victory and goes home. So, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised. He said, oh, well, Maduro’s capitulated. So we’ve got our mission accomplished. We’re out of here. You know, maybe they’d cut a deal to give access, U.S. more access to oil in Venezuela. So I never rule out the possibility of a deal. The fact of the matter is, I think he first deployed these ships, started deploying the U.S.

military assets off the coast of Venezuela in August, or maybe September. So, you know, we’re well four months into this with these guys floating around and doing nothing. I mean, blowing up fishing boats with guys that don’t have weapons, you know, that doesn’t take any courage. That’s the act of a coward. The United States is a complete coward with those kinds of strikes. But, you know, at some point you start getting a degradation in capabilities. The longer people are like at sea other than the sailors on the ships. If they got any Marines deployed on board ship, that’s why I think they’ve actually had to go park them over in Puerto Rico.

So they can get off ship, they can march, they can exercise, they can do a variety of things. But the U.S. military options with Venezuela are very limited. You know, we can drop bombs. Well, we’ve got, you know, we’ve got 80 years of history about the limitations of bombing a country into submission. We saw how well that worked in Iraq in, you know, 1990 and then in 2003. We saw how well it worked in Syria. So there are limitations with air power. And ground forces. Venezuela is three times the size of Vietnam. And we had, in 1969, we had 543,000 U.S.

soldiers and Marines sailors on the ground in Vietnam. And we failed to defeat the North Vietnamese with more than a half a million soldiers, sailors, Marines. What do we got for Venezuela now? 18,000 Marines and soldiers? What are you going to do with that? It is, you know, you’re certainly not going to go in and occupy any amount of territory or secure Caracas. Good God, the logistics on that would be a nightmare. Because you’ve got to come up from the beach or from the coastline up, you know, I forget it’s like a 30-mile trip from the coast to Caracas.

And there are ambush points all along that route, as I recall, you know, last time I was there. So Trump doesn’t have any good military options. They’re going to try to coerce Maduro. And, you know, it tends to what is done is it’s actually built support for Maduro. I think before there was really opposition, credible opposition to Maduro. I’d argue right now it’s actually solidified his control and popularity. So this actually potentially helped Maduro. Yes. This military build up because it proved that he’s the one who could stand in the way of the imperialist power to the north, the U.S.

And he’s done so successfully up until this point at least. Right. Right. And that helps galvanize his supporters in Venezuela. Do you think what do you think China and Russia are doing watching this whole thing unfold? Do you think they’re just stepping back and or do you think there’s some backchannel communications with Venezuela that will either support you or won’t support you? Well, yeah, I think there’s clearly backchannel communications. There’s clear diplomatic support on the part of Russia and China. Some have argued that maybe the real purpose of this is not so much Maduro as to try to block Chinese influence in Venezuela.

Venezuela has also had a relationship with Iran. But it was sort of laughable the other day that they claimed they intercepted a tanker carrying oil from Iran to Venezuela. And I went, what? I mean, that’s like saying, hey, we’re taking snow from Alaska and shipping it over into Siberia. They both got snow. What are you doing? But both countries are oil countries. So there’s something else going on here. Actually, what we’ve seen is the shift in the narrative. It went from we’re stopping the flood of fentanyl to we’re stopping these ghost ships carrying oil.

OK, which is, you know, if you can tell me how those ghost ships carrying oil or fueling the fentanyl business of which Venezuela has never been accused of being a trans shipper of fentanyl. You know, just, you know, speak slowly and explain it to me. Let me see if I can follow this. You know, the argument’s ridiculous. Netanyahu was supposed to be meeting with Trump later on this month. I think down in Miami or they’ll be meeting in Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, West Palm Beach. And one of the big news stories from this weekend was NBC News saying that Israel is going to at least present Trump a plan about why it needs to start taking out Iranian ballistic missiles.

And from what from what I’ve read online, this guy, Trita Parsi, he’s from Think Tank. He wrote how outrageous that is. He said it’s essentially the equivalence of the U.S. taking out cutlery facilities across Iran because of the dangers of knives, kitchen knives. What’s your take on this risk now developing another potential war between Israel and Iran, U.S. potential involvement? And does this also show that Trump was inaccurate with his comment that he completely pulverized the Iranian nuclear infrastructure? Let’s be clear. He didn’t use the word pulverize. He said obliterated. Good point. Yeah, actually, I think obliterated pulverize.

Okay, I take it back. I’m wrong. Same word. Look, Iran has a massive ballistic missile force underground. The only way that Israel could hope to try to put a dent in that is to use a nuclear weapon. And even then, if they dented it, Iran still got enough capabilities and enough sites that they’ll be able to launch missiles that Israel cannot stop. And Iran has vowed that the next, if there’s a next time, next time they’re going to be using more powerful missiles with more capability that Israel will not be able to defend against. You know, Donald Trump’s got to figure, you know, he reminds me of some aspiring transgender figuring out whether they want to cut off their genitalia or not.

You know, he’s trying to figure out, is he the peace president or the war president? You know, I sure wish he was the peace president. His argument, and you know this, Larry, is that he achieves peace through using overpowering strength. So he would say, I’m the peace president, but exactly because I’m willing to use the military. I’m the peace president because I’m willing to exert our force around the world. When you were a kid, did you ever like tie a towel around your shoulders and think you could fly like Superman? That’s Donald Trump. You know, he creates these false narratives.

Yeah, look how that worked out. That overwhelming military power worked out in the Red Sea against the Houthis. Oh, that’s right. We had to abandon the air to declare victory and leave because they defeated us. We never declared a defeat, though. By God, we just declared victory and cheer and jump up and down. The same thing with the story, what the story were told publicly about the strikes that took place in Iran back in June, as opposed to what actually happened, I think, are quite different. Again, I’ve never been able to figure out this claim that the planes, those B-2 bombers flew 36 hours.

Now, you know, I charted out. It could be even I can make it in a commercial jetliner to that area and about from, you know, from the United States to there, you know, 12 hours, maybe, you know, the commercial jetliners traveling much slower than these bombers. So, you know, the time is something wrong with that timeline. But if Trump gets persuaded to go along with Bibi on this scheme, you know, they’ll be making a grave mistake. Iran is now closely aligned militarily with both Russia and China. Russia and China, prior to the surprise attacks in June, had offered Iran support, which Iran rejected, stupidly rejected.

Not now. After that 12-day war, they went hand in hand to Russia and China and said, hey, would you help us? And the Russians and Chinese have been actively helping Iran. So the United States will be risking further confrontation with both Russia and China if they decide to back an attack on Iran by Israel. Do you see all these global conflicts, Larry, do you see them all tied to each other in some way? Because if you’re if you’re in favor generally of the strikes in the Caribbean, you’re generally in favor of Israel’s actions in the Middle East.

If you’re and you’re also probably in favor of, of course, it’s a broad strokes here and you’re probably in favor of the Ukraine war and Ukraine’s effort in its war against Russia. It doesn’t take up a very smart political analyst to see there are certainly fault lines here and there are certainly people identifying who the good guys are in multiple conflicts and putting them into one, right? Yeah. Well, look, you can make the case that we’re being held hostage by a military industrial complex, that you’ve got to feed the beast, that the way the U.S.

economy keeps growing is that we keep pumping money, more money into a defense industry that builds terribly expensive weapons that don’t work and or that are outdated, outmoded. You know, these super aircraft carriers is a case in point. They’re really no longer relevant in a world where hypersonic missiles exist with the hypersonic missile, something that travels at the speed of Mach six and can be maneuvered. Anything that’s traveling that fast and it’s maneuvering, the U.S. doesn’t have an air defense system capable of shooting it down. So that means how these aircraft carriers, if they get set set out against an opponent like China, they’re going to get blown out of the water.

So then you’ve got to keep it far enough away from China that China can’t reach them, at which point that limits their operational usefulness. So we’ve got a structural and strategic problem in this country that we are so dependent upon solving everything with attempt with military force. And yet you step back and say, what have we actually solved? You step back 33 years to Black Hawk down in Somalia. You know, Somalia is a safer place today than it was then? No. Ditto for Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya. So, you know, we’ve created a mythology about the effectiveness of military power when it’s the truth of the matter is exactly the opposite.

It’s very ineffective, it’s very costly, and it certainly hasn’t made us safer. And so tell me, Solari, and also I just want to get your point quickly on Ukraine and the developments there. You have Trump and his administration, they say they’re looking for a ceasefire. They seem to be more willing to accept some of Russia’s terms. Europeans in Ukraine seem like they do not appreciate some of Russia’s terms and they won’t agree to them. But then you also have strange things coming out of Washington, like Lindsey Graham yesterday saying, or on Sunday, saying that Putin better accept the most recent ceasefire proposal or Trump should let all, I think he might have used the word all hell loose on Russia, meaning allow the tomahawks and just ramp up support for Ukraine.

Like, this is it. You know, it’s like the Godfather quote, either your signature or your brain is going to be on this contract. What’s your take on Lindsey Graham’s latest threat? And also, are these whole peace negotiations from the Trump administration, is this legitimate? Are they being sincere in these negotiations? The Trump administration is making a good act of being sincere. Look, there will be no peace agreement, period. Not going to happen. Because, number one, Russia has made its demands very clear. They have not backed off of those once. They made a Vladimir Putin presented it on June 14, 2024.

The essence of it was that the five territories that Russia has now brought into the Russian Federation from Ukraine are and forevermore will be part of Russia. Russia is not going to cede any territory. Russia is not going to freeze in place. Russia expects the world to recognize and acknowledge Karasan, Zaporizhia, the Nets, Luhant, along with Crimea, as permanent parts of Russian territory. NATO’s got to go away. The Ukrainian army has got to be reduced dramatically in size. And there need to be new elections. Those are the essential demands by Russia before actual negotiations can begin.

To end the war in Ukraine, number one. The reason there will never be an agreement is Russia will insist on whatever, if they come up to those terms that Russia has demanded, they will insist on a treaty that will have to be ratified by the US Senate with two-thirds of the senators present voting in favor of that treaty. If Donald Trump agrees, reaches an agreement that is in support of the terms that I’ve outlined that Russia demands and Russia is not, they’re not negotiating, it’s not one of these situations where they like, that they put an inflated demand out there and say, but yeah, we got some flexibility on that.

They are inflexible on the territories, particularly inflexible. They’re not going to back off of that at all. So if Trump agreed to something like that, there’s no way in hell that you’d get two-thirds of the US Senate to vote for that. They’d refuse. They’d view Trump as a sellout. So the problem they got is no matter what agreement Trump reaches, it’s not going to be a valid agreement unless it’s put into a treaty and it’s signed off on by the US Senate. If Russia doesn’t have that, Russia’s got nothing. And they’re not going to go on another promise where Donald Trump says, you’ll cross my fingers, hope to die.

No. So that’s why I say this, it’s Kabuki theater. All this, we’re talking back and forth. I think the Russian goal is to make sure, maintain lines of communication with the United States, hope to get back to some normal economic and diplomatic relations where each side’s talking to the other. And so far, there’s not a new US ambassador signed to Moscow. Again, a sign that the United States is not necessarily serious. Now, let me offer one caveat to that. I have learned in the last week that US citizens who previously worked for Russian media outlets like RT and Sputnik are now, previously they were banned, sanctions were imposed on those countries, on those companies.

Those sanctions have now been lifted, quietly. It’s not been advertised, but I know for a fact, one individual who has a show, used to have a show on RT, now back on RT with that show. So on that front, the United States is making some positive gestures. But beyond that, there’s still too many things where the United States has not done, hasn’t returned the property that Barack Obama illegally took from the Russian embassy. They’ve not restored direct flights between the United States and Russia. So the United States continues to supply intelligence that the Ukrainians are using to attack Russian ships and Russian locations.

So it’s sort of an iffy situation still. I do see the likelihood that Russia will succeed in probably getting some normal economic relations back with the United States. But they’re not going to give up the demands that they’ve made. That’s just the thing the West refuses to accept so far. My last question, Larry, is this on Friday, I read a report about Mertz and I think it might have been McCrone who came out and said that the US had a deal that gave security guarantees to Ukraine that if something happened and they came to an agreement and a ceasefire or a peace deal, the US would essentially offer Article 5 type protections for Ukraine outside the framework of NATO.

Article 5 is something that keeps being brought up in conversations about NATO and the deterrence. Joe Biden ran around saying that if you put one inch of NATO, if you put your foot in one inch of NATO, well, it’ll draw a response. What’s the point of assuring Russia that Ukraine will not join NATO if the US is essentially giving Ukraine the exact same assurances that Article 5 gives NATO countries? Russia won’t accept that. It’ll be considered totally unacceptable. The only thing Russia might accept would be if the peacekeeping force was of China comprised of some BRICS countries like China and India.

Then Russia might entertain that as a security guarantee for Ukraine, but no NATO countries will be allowed. Absolutely not. Russia doesn’t need the deal. Lindsey Graham can talk tough all he wants, but Russia is not in a position where they’re pining and saying, Oh my God, we need the deal. This war is going badly for us. The war is going great for us. They’re winning. They’re making more and more progress each and every day. Russia will keep on moving forward until there’s going to come a point where Ukraine will collapse militarily. On that note, Larry Johnson, Sonar 21.

We’re going to have a link below this video, so everyone out there who’s watching this can go check out Sonar 21, also bookmark it on your website, on your browser. It’s always packed with information that’s very useful. Larry Johnson, thank you so much for joining the Trends Journal. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, and happy holidays. Hey, thank you, Ed, and you have a great Christmas. Take care. Thank you. [tr:trw].

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