Turning Venezuela into a U.S. Protectorate is a Mistake |
I had a day of ordinary routine mapped out for Jan. 3: rise early, drink coffee while scrolling through news and answering my emails, get some exercise, and sit down to write an article for Letras Libres, a Mexican magazine, on what might await Venezuela in that still-uncertain future when the dictator Nicolás Maduro would no longer be in power.
I had barely fallen asleep when Bruno, my son, jolted me awake.
"Papa, they're bombing Caracas."
I was in Boston, 2,175 miles from Caracas, where I was born and raised. I turned on my phone. My WhatsApp was boiling with messages and videos. On my phone screen, I watched bombs fall, helicopters slice through the sky, and people exclaim: "It’s real." "The gringos are taking down Maduro."
What was unfolding brought back another night of explosions and uncertainty in Caracas. On Feb. 4, 1992, Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor, attempted to overthrow the democratic government of Carlos Andrés Pérez by storming the Miraflores Palace with tanks. Chávez failed, but the assault marked my life and that of millions of Venezuelans. Six years later, it propelled him to the presidency and gave rise to the populist cult known as Chavismo.
Thirty-three years later, it is easy to see that episode as the direct antecedent of the U.S. military intervention that removed Maduro from power, ending his 12-year reign but not Chavismo itself. Many Venezuelans, after years of democratic struggle, had hoped the U.S. would help restore democracy. What they got instead was a makeover of the dictatorship and Venezuela’s conversion into a country under White House tutelage. They also did not expect President Donald Trump to be dismissive of María Corina Machado, the opposition leader, as he was at his press conference after the removal of Maduro.
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Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, which account for more than 90% of export revenues. After the removal of Maduro, although Delcy Rodriguez, a stalwart of the Chavista regime, has been sworn in as interim president, Venezuela is being governed from abroad and crucial decisions about oil are being made in Washington.
The emperor has spoken: Venezuela, c'est moi. Many Venezuelans I spoke to this week are grateful to Trump for freeing them from Maduro. Venezuelans once supported Chávez, a left-wing populist, but they have long admired American culture. If Trump were to restore even a slice of what they had in the 1970s—that heady era known as "Gran Venezuela," when........