We thought we were joking.

It turns out the joke was on us, because - in an apparent failure to come up with an even remotely original narrative for another imminent American intervention - US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday night that, drumroll, "Hezbollah has active cells in Venezuela." Well, we were wrong about ISIS at least.

As the Trump administration has continued to ratchet up pressure on the Latin American nation amid a crippling political and economic crisis, and hinted on several occasions that US troops would be deployed, Mike Pompeo told Fox Business that "people don't recognize that Hezbollah has active cells" in the country, adding that "the Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America" he said, quoted by the Independent.

Sigh.

Ironically or not, when it comes to Hezbollah, which the US has long considered a terrorist organisation, sanctions on people in Venezuela linked to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group have been imposed as far back as the George W Bush administration, seemingly in anticipation for just such an event.