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** Venezuela: Bolivarian Roses for Machado ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • October 26, 2025 at 4:00 am
* In the case of Machado, a case could be made to support her brave campaign to force an authoritarian regime to respect its own constitution by allowing free and fair elections according to the law of the land.
* "There is no need for anyone to be poor in a country as rich as ours," Hugo Chávez asserted. "Give me four years, just give me four years!"
* Well, Chávez had three times as many years and left Venezuela as poor, if not poorer, and certainly more divided than ever under Maduro, whom he called "my bus driver."
* Venezuela has headed the list of Latin American nations as far as capital flight is concerned. Over the years, something like $170 billion has been transferred by Venezuelans to foreign, mostly American, banks. The "Bolivarians" also spent billions helping Cuba and distributing free or cut-price oil to several countries, including some areas of the United States.
* Venezuela ended up with a shortage of gasoline, seeking emergency imports from far-away Iran.
* Bolivar wanted Latin America to seek allies among Western democracies, not the potentates of the Orient.
* Simón Bolívar wanted Latin America to compete with the United States by enhancing its own freedoms, improving its educational system, achieving economic growth, and developing its culture. Bolívar did not believe that seeking the destruction of the United States was a worthy goal for any sane person, let alone a nation.
* Bolívar died in 1830 and is buried in next-door Colombia, but never forgot Venezuela as the "jewel" in the crown of his long campaign for liberation. Had he been here today, he would have sent a bouquet of roses to Machado for her non-violent, but no less courageous, fight for freedom.

Pictured: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado gives a speech during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on January 9, 2025. (Photo by Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images)

As might have been expected, the decision by the Nobel Committee in Oslo to grant this year's Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has raised a storm of controversy about an annual ritual that has been losing luster for years.

Critics say the committee chose Machado, a staunch Trumpist, because it didn't want to anoint her idol. At the same time, choosing another "globalist left-winger" would have given some credibility to the charge that most Nobel prizes have become political trophies.

One example: French President Emmanuel Macron's economic advisor was named a winner in economics.

Even in science categories, prizes are distributed in a way to reflect geopolitics. In literature, the winner, at least for the past 30 years, has been a writer or poet with left-wing credentials and few readers outside the European champagne and caviar liberal elites.

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