María Corina Machado and Marco Rubio Escalate Interventionist Narratives Against Venezuela

By Misión Verdad – Jul 4, 2025

For Venezuela in particular, and in Latin America and the Caribbean in general, one of the most impactful political events so far this year has been, more than the presidency of Donald Trump, the appointment of Marco Rubio as US Secretary of State.

This appointment marked a turning point, not only in the Trump administration, but also in the intensification of Washington’s interventionist agenda in the region.

With his obsession with Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, Rubio has intensified the discourse that the Venezuelan government is a threat to regional security. This claim is not new, but Rubio has exaggerated the magnitude.

Recently, efforts to portray it as a real danger have been amplified with issues such as the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, the reissue of the non-existent Cartel de los Soles, and continued false flag operations at the Venezuelan borders.

These events are part of a broader strategy aimed at generating internal and external tensions to justify intervention, be it diplomatic, economic, or military.

From unfounded accusations to covert operations backed by US agencies, the destabilization agenda against Venezuela follows a historical pattern reminiscent of previous justifications used by Washington in other interventions, such as in Iraq.

Thus, Venezuela is once again in the crosshairs of the empire, under a discourse that attempts to create the perfect excuse for a systematic aggression.

1. The Guyanese enclave and the false flags

The Cuyuní River incident (February 18). In the Venezuelan Essequibo, the government of Guyana claimed an alleged attack against its troops on the banks of the Cuyuní River. According to the Guyanese government, six Guyanese soldiers were wounded by “Venezuelan” armed men. Caracas categorically denied the accusation calling it a “vile fabrication” and pointed out that it was part of a false flag operation. The Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, decried that this incident was part of a strategy to justify the militarization of the zone with the support of the US Southern Command. Venezuela highlighted that Guyana’s violations of the international legal framework are recurrent, especially in the territorial dispute over the Essequibo.
Visit of Marco Rubio to Guyana (March 27). The agenda of aggression was consolidated when Marco Rubio visited Guyana, where he signed a memorandum of understanding with its president, Irfaan Ali. The agreement focused on security cooperation, but in practice is perceived as a mechanism to strengthen the US military presence in Guyana under the pretext of combating “organized crime.” Rubio and other US officials fed the narrative of the presence of the Tren de Aragua gang, subterfuge that can result in covert maneuvers, similar to the false flag operations the US has used in the past to justify military interventions. “So I think if we have information that someone has entered your country [Guyana] with bad intentions, we want to be able to share it with your government,” the US secretary of state said at the time. “We have leads on a member of the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela. We want to make sure that we collaborate and share news. If we have information that some drug traffickers are establishing themselves here and have decided to turn this into a base of operations, which could generate violence and war, like gang warfare, we want to provide it to you.”
Another false flag operation (May 15). There was another claim by Ali’s administration of clashes in the undelimited waters at the border. However, the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) strongly denied such accusations. In a communiqué it stated that the reports showed that the allegations were part of a false flag operation orchestrated to portray the government of Guyana as a victim and to fabricate artificial tensions on the border. In this regard, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez warned that these are part of a broader maneuver aimed at creating a casus belli, that is, an excuse to justify a military escalation in the region.

2. The border with Colombia

President Maduro condemns Colombia’s inaction (end of April). President Nicolás Maduro repudiated the total inaction of the Colombian authorities amid the growing presence of armed groups, drug trafficking gangs and violence crossing into Venezuelan territory from Colombia. The Venezuelan president emphasized the institutional silence of Gustavo Petro’s government, stating that “the Venezuelan military calls the military over there and they do not answer the phone, they call the police over there and they do not answer the phone,” which underlined the Colombian government’s lack of response to the growing crisis on the border.
Security operation and arrests (May 19). Venezuelan Minister for the Interior Diosdado Cabello announced a major national security operation to dismantle a terrorist plot orchestrated from Colombia. Thirty-eight individuals were arrested, among them 17 foreigners—Colombians, Mexicans, Ukrainians, and an Albanian with Colombian nationality—who were involved in electoral sabotage and bombing attempts. Those captured had received paramilitary training in Ecuador and were financed by Colombian drug traffickers linked to political figures such as Álvaro Uribe, Iván Duque, and Juan Manuel Santos. This criminal network was aimed at creating chaos and destabilizing the elections of May 25, when the governor and the Legislative Council of the state of Guayana Esequiba were elected.
International conspiracy (July 2025). The Venezuelan government dismantled a complex international conspiracy plot directed from Colombia, with the support of U.S. agencies, which sought to carry out terrorist attacks in Venezuela. Minister Cabello revealed in a press conference that Venezuelan intelligence corps had captured several members of a criminal network involved in arms trafficking and the planning of political attacks. They were also involved in the creation of false narratives with the aim of justifying possible foreign aggressions against Venezuela. The operation, whose main objective was to generate chaos in the country prior to the July 27 municipal elections, followed the pattern of hybrid warfare and covert operations historically used by Washington. Cabello explained that this destabilization network involved individuals from the far-right opposition, including María Corina Machado, who maintained contact with Colombian political figures and foreign intelligence agencies, such as the FBI.

3. Reviving the “narco-state” narrative
The recent guilty plea of Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal before a New York federal court has revived the “narco-state” narrative, a discourse used by the United States to criminalize the Venezuelan government. Carvajal, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine and narco-terrorism, has been portrayed as part of the Cartel de los soles that never existed. This narrative has historically been used by Washington as a basis for justifying pressure policies, sanctions, and threats of intervention against Venezuela. Despite the lack of evidence, the discourse is sustained by media outlets and judicial instances, based on confessions such as those of Carvajal.

4. María Corina Machado’s irresponsibility
María Corina Machado has reappeared with her destabilizing agenda and, above all, with manifest irresponsibility, taking advantage of the international tension generated by the attacks against Iran to revive her worn-out narrative about the “Venezuelan threat.” In a recent interview Machado said, “Who is Putin’s great ally in Latin America? Who is the biggest ally of the Iranian regime in Latin America? Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is the only other country in the Western Hemisphere, besides the United States, that has the capacity to build combat drones, obviously of Iranian origin.”

She added that “Venezuela is hours away from Florida, not hours away from Teheran”, and claiming that this constitutes a “real threat.”

During recent investigations into destabilizing actions against the country, it was discovered that a retired scientist, Armando José García Miragaya, former vice president of Control of PDVSA, was in contact with FBI officials providing critical information on crucial Venezuelan infrastructure, such as the Amuay refinery and the Guri dam. This espionage operation, which sought to justify a foreign intervention in Venezuela, was used to try to support Machado’s unfounded accusations about the existence of “Iranian military bases” in the country.

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5. Media agencies join the poisonous campaign
In March the New York Post published an article titled “FBI stepping up operations against cartel linked to Venezuela’s repressive Maduro regime” which revived discredited accusations by recycling the myths linking the Venezuelan government to drug trafficking.

This pattern of unfounded accusations is strategically used at key moments to justify pressure measures against Venezuela. The publication in the New York Post, written by Diana Glebova and Jennie Taer, repeats the same myths about the Cartel de los soles, and it received strong support from Marco Rubio, who continues to push a narrative that seeks to generate conditions for a larger scale intervention.

Likewise, the New York Times published an article by Bret Stephens on January 15, 2025 the presents the Maduro government as a “threat to US national security.” Stephens, close to the Israeli lobby, advocates a “coercive diplomacy” approach and, if necessary, the option of using force, which echoes the strategy used by the US in Iraq in 2003.

In his article Stephens makes the case for overthrowing the Venezuelan government by arguing that Maduro’s continued presence endangers regional stability due to his alleged links to drug trafficking and the growing influence of Iran.

This narrative, despite its lack of concrete evidence, becomes an excuse that feeds the justification in the objective of imposing harsher sanctions and, eventually, a direct military intervention.

Stephens’ article, as well as Rubio’s campaign and the statements of other political actors in Washington, indicate that the pressure on Venezuela is far from ceasing. Instead, there are attempts to revive the strategy of “maximum pressure,” based on unfounded accusations and the amplification of the alleged Venezuelan threat, and thus a continued agenda of aggression that is still present and persists in the shadows of US power.

Manufactured narrative
The events described above reflect a meticulously planned strategy whose ultimate goal is to create the necessary breeding ground to justify an escalation against Venezuela. Over time, Washington’s tactic seeks to build a dossier that will serve as the basis for an intervention, be it diplomatic, economic, or even military.

In this scenario, the irresponsible accusations of María Corina Machado play a central role. Her discourse, fueled by myths and distortions about the Venezuelan government, has constantly reinforced the discourse that Venezuela is a “threat” to regional security.

In her most recent statement Machado claimed, without evidence, that Venezuela has the capacity to manufacture combat drones of Iranian origin, an accusation as unfounded as it is dangerous, which evokes parallels with the famous “Curveball” case and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Although this testimony was later found to be false, the manipulation had already been sufficient to justify the invasion. The narrative was constructed and, with it, the intervention, which turned out to be devastating, was pushed.

Similarly, Machado, like Marco Rubio, has aligned herself with this disinformation machine, which has contributed to the proliferation of a narrative that justifies an intervention against Venezuela.

The hoax, although disconnected from reality, is strategically exploited to create a “spark event,” which can capture the attention of the Trump administration and pressure it to prioritize the Venezuela agenda.

The logic behind this operation is clear: if Venezuela is presented as a regional enemy, the US government, especially under the Trump administration, would be more inclined to consider South America and the Caribbean as a key point for its foreign policy and the need to take more extreme measures against the country.

This type of media and psychological operation is intended to normalize the idea that Venezuela is a real threat to international security. Once this perception has taken hold, the doors would be opened for more severe sanctions, military support or even direct intervention. The goal is for the White House, backed by a Congress controlled by figures like Marco Rubio, to push resolutions or bills that intensify aggression against Venezuela.

This dynamic is not new. The creation of a fictitious threat to justify an intervention has been a recurrent strategy in US foreign policy. Let us recall the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the George W. Bush administration used the false testimony of “Curveball” to justify a military invasion based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Although it was later revealed that these accusations were false, the manipulation of information had already allowed the intervention to take place.

Similarly, what began as a “human rights defense” narrative in the case of Venezuela has become, over time, a pretext for imposing illegal sanctions and pushing for more direct intervention. Since 2014, Rubio and the Venezuelan extreme-right opposition have worked hard to propagate the narratives that would be used to justify such intervention and aggression.

The pattern repeats itself: first the threat is created, then the manipulated evidence is presented, and finally that evidence is used to justify a forceful aggression. If the Trump administration succeeds in convincing US Congress to move forward with new sanctions and more drastic measures, the cycle of intervention will repeat itself, the same imperialist script with which we are so familiar in the Global South.

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

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