Washington's Enduring Sanctions Playbook
US military forces have intercepted yet another oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Veronica III , claiming it was transporting 'illicit' Venezuelan crude. This boarding operation follows a similar seizure last month, both undertaken by the Pentagon after tracking the vessels from the Caribbean. The narrative suggests these actions are a direct consequence of Venezuela's reliance on a so-called
'shadow fleet' to circumvent US sanctions, intensified by a December quarantine order from former President Donald Trump. This particular episode in 2026 bears an uncanny resemblance to historical precedents where economic embargos and maritime interdictions were employed as tools of regime change. In 1962, the US naval quarantine of Cuba, framed as a response to missile installations, was
fundamentally an act of economic and military pressure. More recently, in 2019, the Trump administration leveraged sanctions against Iran's oil sector, regularly seizing tankers and their cargo under similar pretexts of 'illicit' trade, choking off vital revenues. The same playbook appears in the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran, where economic pressure on Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who dared
to nationalize oil, laid the groundwork for his overthrow. The current narrative conveniently omits that such 'illicit' trade emerges as a direct response to unilateral sanctions that constitute an act of economic warfare, explicitly designed to cripple a sovereign nation's economy and coerce political outcomes. US officials acknowledge Venezuela faces sanctions on its oil, yet the focus remains