Hello and welcome to another episode of Realpolitik. I am your host, Firas Madad.

This is the first episode of the New Year, and there's been some surprises. The Americans

went ahead and just grabbed the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, from his own residence, apparently.

We're going to talk about the operational details. We're going to

talk about what this means for other countries. We're going to talk about who benefits, what does

this change. We're going to talk about some of the conspiracy theories that people have had.

We're going to go into a lot of detail here. But let's start with what we know so far, right?

What we know so far is that something like 32 Cuban guards of Maduro got killed during this

operation, meaning that his key personnel, the people guarding him, were not Venezuela as they were Cubans.

And this sort of shows you the extent to which there is deep mistrust within this regime.

Now, mind you, there had been reports that the vice president of Venezuelaenezuela who is now acting as ven as as president

her name is is rodriguez i believe uh garcy rodriguez darcy rodriguez something like that

she was in negotiations with the americans in catar with ua e mediation, et cetera, et cetera,

talking about the terms of exit of Maduro.

And if you remember, there were all kinds of stories

in the media saying that he pretty much agreed

to hand over all of the oil.

He'd hand over the natural resources.

He'd distance himself from China, but the Americans

insisted, no, no, no, no, no, no, we want you to hand over yourself. You are going to come here and

be tried, and then maybe the regime can survive. And he said no, he went around partying. There are videos of him online, playing the DJ and basically making fun of Trump and saying that the Americans aren't going to do anything. And then the Americans show up, they killed his bodyguards, and they capture him. Now on the tactical stuff, it's also worth

remembering the following. It's worth remembering that the Americans are saying that 150 different

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