A decision by the United States to militarily intervene in Venezuela’s political crisis will spell disaster for the entire region, causing regional crises similar to those going on in the Middle East today, a Latin American expert has warned.

Dennis Small, a Virginia-based editor of Executive Intelligence Review, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump said military action against Caracas and in support of the Venezuelan opposition was “an option.”

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have thronged the streets of Venezuela, holding rallies in support and against President Nicolas Maduro, who began his second six-year term in office last month.

The clashes began after Juan Guaido, the opposition leader in the country’s National Assembly, proclaimed himself as “interim president” and urged Maduro to resign.

The US rushed to support Guaido, announcing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry. Other US officials have also doubled down on the possibility of military action, reiterating Trump’s stance that “all options are on the table.”

“It’s very hard to tell with Trump as to whether his words are meaning what they say because he also is very capable, and this is not a bad thing, of changing his policies depending on which way things go,” Small said.

He argued that Trump was toying with the idea of a military intervention to increase pressure on Maduro but it was not clear how serious the threat was.

“I think that any such intervention would be an absolute disaster,” Small predicted. “It would blow up the entire region.”

He said any military intervention by Washington would create a “mess” near America’s own borders, a situation very similar to what “unjustified” military interventions by the US, the UK and other countries have led to in the Middle East.

‘Bolton is a lunatic’

Asked about US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s remarks about the possibility of a military intervention in Venezuela, Small called the hawkish diplomat a “lunatic” whose policies always bring about the “gravest of strategic consequences.”

Bolton has been linked to an unconfirmed US plan to deploy 5,000 troops to Colombia amid the ongoing unrest in neighboring Venezuela.

Read More:

On Friday, he played down the possibility of an imminent US military action but said Maduro should either peacefully retire or face possible detention in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump under pressure

In an interesting take on the issue, Small said one of the reasons behind Trump’s threats about opening a new military front was to ease pressure from neoconservative elements within his government who represented the US deep state as well as British geopolitics.

The analyst said many politicians in Washington were disappointed with Trump’s decision to end long-running US military interventions in Afghanistan and Syria and his willingness to forge better ties with Russia and China.

“The issue of Venezuela is part of a much bigger strategic battle underway in which the Trump administration has threatened to break from the traditional British geopolitics of war and interventions on numerous fronts,” Small argued.

“All of this, which is an anti-establishment type of approach from Trump, has the British financial and political interests in an absolute frenzy along with their allies in United States in Wall Street and among the neocon crowd,” he added.