There is a familiar American temptation at work in Venezuela today: declare victory, frame it as decisive leadership, and move on. From Washington’s vantage point, the removal of Nicolás Maduro (however it was achieved) looks like a strategic success. The hemisphere’s most disruptive regime has lost its figurehead. Oil, that old geopolitical lodestar, seems once again within reach. Rivals like Russia and China appear, at least momentarily, off balance.

History, unfortunately, has a habit of interrupting such celebrations. For two decades, Venezuela has not merely been a failed state; it has been a regional destabiliser on an industrial scale. Mass migration, criminal networks, energy shocks, and political contagion have radiated outward from Caracas, affecting Colombia, Brazil, the Caribbean, and ultimately the southern border of the United States. From that perspective, Washington’s interest in stabilising Venezuela is not ideological but preventative. The problem is that prevention, especially after regime disruption, is rarely tidy.

Grand Slam, Grand Prices: AO 2026 food costs spark outrage

The shadow of the Iraq lesson remains. The toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was meant to have ended a chapter. Instead, it opened a book that Americans remain stuck in to this day, one filled with insurgency, sectarianism, and unintended consequences. Venezuela stands at the turn of another such page. The ousting of Maduro opens the way; however, it does not bring about order.

Power in Caracas has never resided in a single office. It is a coalition system—part patronage network, part security cartel, part ideological residue of Chavismo. Oil revenues grease the machinery. Force keeps it running. With Maduro gone, the system does not vanish; it fragments. That is when states become dangerous.

Legends light up Rod........

© The Nation