HE was misled

President Trump is questioning his administration’s aggressive strategy in Venezuela following the failure of a U.S.-backed effort to oust President Nicolás Maduro, complaining he was misled about how easy it would be to replace the socialist strongman with a young opposition figure, according to administration officials and White House advisers.

  WaPo

Did they tell him it would be as easy as trade wars?

The president’s dissatisfaction has crystallized around national security adviser John Bolton and what Trump has groused is an interventionist stance at odds with his view that the United States should stay out of foreign quagmires.

HE'S the president. Why is he letting Bolton run the show?

Trump has said in recent days that Bolton wants to get him “into a war” — a comment that he has made in jest in the past but that now betrays his more serious concerns, one senior administration official said.

He'll be happy enough about that war when his tax returns start showing up in Congress.

Trump has [...] complained over the past week that Bolton and others underestimated Maduro, according to three senior administration officials who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

They underestimated the Venezuelan people, without whom Maduro would be gone. I don't see how they could have even a passing understanding of the country's recent history and underestimate the situation.

Trump has said that Maduro is a “tough cookie” and that aides should not have led him to believe that the Venezuelan leader could be ousted last week, when Guaidó led mass street protests that turned deadly.

Did he miss the earlier attempt when Guaidó, backed by the US, went to Colombia to gin up a coup?

Maduro rejected an offer to leave the country and two key figures in his government backed out of what Bolton said had been a plan to defect. Maduro publicly mocked Trump in response and said he wasn’t going anywhere, saying the United States had attempted a “foolish” coup.

Late Wednesday, masked Venezuelan intelligence police detained National Assembly Vice President Edgar Zambrano in a dramatic operation in Caracas, marking the first senior opposition official taken into custody by the socialist government in retaliation for the failed effort to incite a military uprising. Zambrano is one of 10 opposition officials charged with treason, conspiracy and rebellion by the pro-Maduro Supreme Court in connection to the plot.

Bolton publicly revealed the defection plan to apply pressure to Maduro, which U.S. officials said has worked. They claim Maduro is sleeping in a bunker, paranoid that close aides will turn on him.

Pure propaganda.

Despite Trump’s grumbling that Bolton had gotten him out on a limb on Venezuela, Bolton’s job is safe, two senior administration officials said, and Trump has told his national security adviser to keep focusing on Venezuela.

That settles it. They're idiots. Nobody's job is safe in the Trump administration.

The open threat of U.S. military involvement in Venezuela has grown alongside the administration’s increasingly confrontational approach to Iran, with Bolton announcing last weekend that a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group would be deployed to counter Iranian plots to harm U.S. forces in the Middle East.

[...]

Trump appears to be more comfortable with the Iran policy, which is grounded in his own strong belief that President Barack Obama miscalculated in striking a nuclear bargain with Tehran. He is less comfortable with the escalating rhetoric on Venezuela, which does not pose a direct military threat to the United States. Any U.S. military involvement there risks a proxy fight with Russia, which backs Maduro and has sold him arms.

And he sure doesn't want to get on the wrong side of Putin.

Trump has, in Oval Office meetings and phone calls with advisers, questioned his administration providing such strong support of Guaidó. Some White House officials said Trump likes the charismatic leader, whom he has called courageous, but has wondered aloud whether he is ready to take over and about how much the administration really knows about him.

[...]

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he has no concern that the United States is making a bad bet on Guaidó.

“Oh God, no. Smart money,” Graham said. “I think he’s the future of Venezuela. He’s young, he’s the solution — not the problem.”

Bookmark that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.