No. of Recommendations: 5
Not at all. The entire power structure of the regime is still in place.
The notoriously hard right Wall Street Journal editorial page has noticed. Today’s lead editorial:
As Sunday dawned in Caracas and Washington, a new reality was also apparent a day after the U.S. snatched dictator Nicolás Maduro in a daring raid (see nearby). To wit, the dictator’s cronies are still running Venezuela, and they don’t seem ready to give it up. Is President Trump willing to settle for Maduro 2.0?
Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president, is now the acting president. Like Mr. Maduro, she’s been sanctioned by the U.S. and European Union. After Mr. Maduro’s capture Saturday, she issued defiant public remarks. She’s a hard-line socialist well known for her close ties to Cuban intelligence.
Ms. Rodríguez's brother, Jorge Rodríguez, remains in charge of the National Assembly. Also still in power is the notorious interior minister, Diosdado Cabello. He declared in Caracas that the U.S. had only partially succeeded in its mission and that the Chavista revolution will continue.
Does this worry the Trump Administration? Not that it is showing. Mr. Trump boasted Saturday that Ms. Rodríguez will do what the U.S. wants, or else. He threatened a “second wave” of military intervention if she doesn’t.
But Mr. Trump didn’t say anything about holding new elections as a U.S. goal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that elections will need to be held eventually, though he didn’t seem to think it’s all that urgent. Mr. Rubio seemed confident that the U.S. embargo on Venezuelan oil exports will squeeze the regime enough that it will buckle to U.S. demands.
“We want drug trafficking to stop. We want no more gang members to come our way. We don’t want to see the Iranian and, by the way, Cuban presence in the past. We want the oil industry in that country not to go to the benefit of pirates and adversaries of the United States, but for the benefit of the people,” Mr. Rubio said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Those are important goals, but Mr. Rubio’s implication is that the Maduro apparat can stick around if they heed these demands. This is a risky bet, especially since the regime’s new leaders rely so much on aid from Cuba, Russia, China and Iran. It’s unlikely these people will turn into pro-American democrats.
All the more so since the U.S. military left Venezuela at the end of the Maduro operation. Mr. Rubio said Sunday it was unrealistic to take more risks in the raid to decapitate more of the regime, which is fair enough.
But despite Mr. Trump’s vow that the U.S. will “run the country,” there is no one on the ground to do so. This may mollify MAGA critics who fear he is imitating George W. Bush’s occupation of Iraq. But it reduces the U.S. ability to persuade the regime.
Much depends on whether the Maduro crowd fear a second U.S. military strike. Even more depends on whether the Trump Administration is willing to push for new elections. The U.S. needn’t back any candidate. But a democratic government of the kind that won the 2024 election, only to have it stolen by Mr. Maduro, would be a more durable ally.
The Trump Administration talks about its foreign-policy “realism.” But if Maduro 2.0 remains in defiant power in six months, its gamble on his henchmen won’t look very realistic.
It will be hard to make “a second strike” since taking out the leadership one at a time is a fool’s game. There’s an entire regime in place that would need to be replaced, which means you’d have to do the whole invasion/incursion thing, at least to some degree. Are we ready for that?
And then there’s “nation building”. I wonder how long MAGA would stand for that?
