Thread on #Venezuela: Dictators in trouble always offer limited, symbolic "concessions" to play the international community for time and aid. The pattern is repeated so often that it is, well, a pattern. They offer what they need to in order to lull the international community.

It is a deeply cynical exercise. So let's explore now what has gotten the international community all in a lather:

The release of the #CitgoSix to house arrest. Fine. But they shouldn't be incarcerated in the first place at all. So this is no concession.

The addition of opposition figures to the CNE which remains under regime control. Great. Even the Sandinistas had opposition figures in the junta for a time. Lenin in creating the USSR was explicit about this sort of thing.

Allowing in the @WFP to feed starving people is, well, astonishing. Not that it's occurred. But that it NEEDED to occur. #Venezuela has more proven reserves of oil than any other nation on earth. And its people are starving. So...there is something else at work, what could it be?

Is this a move to show "flexibility" by the #Venezuela regime? Hardly. It's a mark of desperation, allowing an international organization to feed the people that Maduro chooses not to feed, asking the world to pay his bills, and reducing pent up pressures for change.

Even North Korea--North Korea!--accepts food aid from @WFP...folks, they still have nuclear weapons and are developing more...flexibility? Hardly. Cynicism. While we are grateful that some in #Venezuela will now have access to food, can this be a signal that Maduro seeks change?

If Maduro really wanted change, he'd release political prisoners without condition, free the press, allow a truly independent electoral commission, seek unhindered international assistance and distribution, and more. He hasn't, and my prediction is and always has been, he won't.

The thing is, this is not a unique thing for #Venezuela. Remember Gorbachev, whom some are now likening to Maduro, dabbling at "reform" to entice the West? He wanted to save the system, not transform it. And how did the West respond? With US leadership, stood firm and united...

...and didn't bite on Soviet maneuverings to split NATO, vilify the US, appeal to think tanks and NGO's, and all the rest of it. In the end, the Soviet Union itself fell. You know, if we let it, history can actually teach us a few things from time to time. End #Venezuela thread.