American journalist Max Blumenthal sharply criticizes the Nobel Committee's decision to award the 2025 Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado.
In a statement on social media, he accuses the laureate of being a US-funded regime change activist and argues that the prize is a green light for military action against Venezuela.
Max Blumenthal, a journalist at the US-based news website The Grayzone, has in a lengthy post on X questioned the Nobel Committee's decision to award the Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado, leader of Venezuela's opposition.
Blumenthal describes Machado as a political actor working in US interests rather than for peace. "The Nobel Committee has decided to make the case for Trump's war on Venezuela, giving its 'Peace Prize' to Maria Corina Machado, a US govt-funded regime change activist who's helped lead failed military coups, violent street riots, and has likely promised her country's oil and mineral wealth to a consortium of MAGA aligned billionaires in exchange for financing her political arsonism," he writes.
Comparisons to Pinochet and Netanyahu
The journalist harshly attacks the laureate, calling her "a marionette for Marco Rubio, a creation of the CIA-sponsored Gusano Industrial Complex that has brought violent terror and siege to any Latin American country defying the Washington Consensus of privatization and austerity, and a would-be Pinochet in a skirt."
Blumenthal also claims that Machado has turned to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for support. "This icon of peace has even appealed to Benjamin Netanyahu to help her lead a military invasion of Venezuela," he writes.
Criticism for supporting sanctions
A central part of Blumenthal's criticism concerns Machado's alleged lobbying for economic sanctions against her own country. He argues that she "has spent years lobbying for US and EU starvation sanctions on her own country, resulting in waves of migration to the US, fueling the nativist resentment that gave rise to Trump."
Blumenthal also points to Machado's response when Donald Trump sent Venezuelan migrants to a detention camp in El Salvador earlier this year. "When Trump shipped Venezuelan migrants to a torture camp in El Salvador this year, Machado predictably sided with Trump, the main sponsor of her putschist career, over her countrymen," he writes.
Committee's role a "soft power instrument"
The journalist draws parallels to previous controversial awards and argues that the decision regarding Machado is consistent with the Committee's role as a power instrument for the Western world. "Giving the Nobel to Machado is a green light for regime change war on Venezuela, and then Cuba. But the decision is consistent with the Committee's role as a soft power instrument of the Western empire," he states.
He recalls the prize to Barack Obama at the beginning of his first presidential term: "Just recall its award to Obama at the beginning of his first term, granting him infinite legitimacy in advance of his destruction of Libya, escalation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and facilitation of Gaza's decimation."
Blumenthal concludes with an interpretation of what he sees as the real purpose behind the award: "Given that nothing has happened in Machado's career without the support and guidance of Washington, the Committee's decision must be seen as the result of another Western op - a coup in Oslo to pave the way for one in Caracas."




