alt Hacker News> * Let’s assume the US is going to stabilise Venezuela quickly enough, that the Venezuelan oil will soon flow around, but only to “selected” countries (basically, …. Anyone but China)
This is a bad assumption. Trump has already promised China their oil on the first day of this nonsense. You don't need to steelman anything. Incompetence does exist in the real world. There's no more reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Well, If I strawman them now, this assumption fail in a different way: I very much expect the cartels and narcos to organise a guerilla that will disturb oil trade for a while. (Russia would be incentivized to fund / equip / help the cartels. This would backfire, of course, but what doesn't ?)