Ya' Cousin Cleon
OG COUCH CORNER HUSTLA
The social-democratic wing of the Democratic Party must find a way to put forth a compelling counter-vision.
Donald Trump has been hot for Venezuela for some time now. In the summer of 2017, Trump, citing George H.W. Bush’s 1989–90 invasion of Panama as a positive precedent, repeatedly pushed his national-security staff to launch a military assault on the crisis-plagued country. Trump was serious. He wanted to know: Why couldn’t the United States just invade? He brought up the idea in meeting after meeting.
His military and civilian advisers, along with foreign leaders, forcefully dismissed the proposal. So, according to NBC, he outsourced Venezuela policy to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who, along with National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, began coordinating with the Venezuelan opposition. On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence calledon Venezuelans to rise up and overthrow the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. On Wednesday, the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, the heretofore unknown 35-year-old Juan Guaidó (whose political godfather is, according to The Washington Post, jailed far-right leader Leopoldo López), declared himself president. Guaidó was quickly recognized by Washington, followed by Canada; a number of powerful Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia; and the United Kingdom.
Trump has a wobbly sense of history, but his instinct to see Venezuela through the prism of Panama is on the mark. Similar to Panama then, Venezuela is today a nation suffering a long, seemingly insurmountable crisis, governed by a regime challenged by a united (or united enough) opposition, which Washington can use to justify intervention and then install in power once the intervention is complete.
And Trump, looking at Venezuela, is doing no more than George H.W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan before him, who both used a one-off war in the Washington’s “backyard” to reorder domestic and international politics. Latin America and the Caribbean have long been Washington’s workshop, especially useful as a place where rising political coalitions can regroup following moments of global crisis, where they can not only rehearse military and destabilization strategies but also sharpen their worldview and work out moral justifications for intervention.
Reagan’s 1983 invasion of Grenada won praise from many Democrats, who celebrated overcoming not just the trauma of the Vietnam War but the Iran-hostage syndrome. One columnist, previewing today’s reality-showization of politics, said that the invasion gave “American television” one of its “better weeks.” The Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, called the invasion “justified,” as did another harsh Democratic critic of Reagan, Thomas Foley. “Years of frustration were vented by the Grenada invasion,” said New Jersey Democrat Robert Torricelli. Bush’s follow-up invasion of Panama gave television an even better week, and brought the same kind of domestic praise. Both invasions, especially the one of Panama, helped to erode the principle of non-intervention—the foundation of the New Deal diplomatic order—and restore to international law the premise that the United States has the right to wage war on sovereign countries not only in the name of national security but for a higher moral purpose, such as the protection of lives or the defense of human rights.
It seems clear that Trump, himself presiding over a nation suffering a seemingly insurmountable crisis and challenged by a united (or united enough) opposition, is desperate for something to break the deadlock. A quick tour d’horizon reveals strikingly few opportunities. Iran is too risky, for now, and his predecessors have racked over what’s left of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Venezuela beckons.
We are seeing, sort of, the same kind of coming together witnessed in the run up to Panama and Iraq. “On Venezuela, Where Are Liberals?” wailedthe headline for a New York Times column by Bret Stephens last year. They’re with you Bret, they’re with you. Representative Eliot Engel, who now chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, supports Donald Trump’s Venezuela position, promising to introduce legislation to back it up, and he’s backed by Florida Democratic Representative Donna Shalala. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted “America stands by the people of #Venezuelaas they rise up against authoritarian rule and demand respect for human rights and democracy.” In Florida, Andrew Gillum, who narrowly lost a contested governor’s race to a right-wing Trumpian (and who was himself was redbaited in that campaign and linked by Trump to Maduro), likewise tweeted out support of Trump’s Venezuela policy. NPR’s coverage was fawning. “This is the right call. Thank you, Mr. President,” tweeted Jeb Bush.
For its part, most of the rising social-democratic wing of the Democratic Party has been slow to respond. California representative Ro Khanna was perhaps the first among the congressional left to criticize the bid for regime change, and he did so forcefully, as did, later, presidential candidate and Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard. Bernie Sanders botched his response, leading by accepting the premise of Trump’s intervention, that Maduro’s presidency was illegitimate, before noting that the United States “has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries; we must not go down that road again.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s response has also been muted.
Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar provided the strongest statement: “We cannot hand pick leaders for other countries on behalf of multinational corporate interests,” she said. “If we really want to support the Venezuelan people, we can lift the economic sanctions that are inflicting suffering on innocent families, making it harder for them to access food and medicines, and deepening the economic crisis.” Those sanctions had considerable Democratic Party support.
Maduro, the former vice president to the late Hugo Chávez who won a close presidential election in 2013 and then a disputed reelection in 2018, might fall: The coordination—detailed here in The Wall Street Journal—between the opposition and the White House is impressive, as is Washington’s ability to whip together international backing. That’s different from 1989, when every country in the Organization of the American States, including Pinochetista Chile, opposed Bush’s invasion. Or from 1983, when, in the face of OAS opposition, the Reagan administration had to invoke treaty obligations with the microscopic Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to justify its assault on Grenada. In Venezuela, unlike in past rounds of opposition protest, poor people from historically Chavista neighborhoods seem to be joining the calls for Maduro’s ouster (Rebecca Hanson and Tim Gill, at NACLA, here, have a good survey of the current situation).
How the Right Is Using Venezuela to Reorder Politics
Donald Trump has been hot for Venezuela for some time now. In the summer of 2017, Trump, citing George H.W. Bush’s 1989–90 invasion of Panama as a positive precedent, repeatedly pushed his national-security staff to launch a military assault on the crisis-plagued country. Trump was serious. He wanted to know: Why couldn’t the United States just invade? He brought up the idea in meeting after meeting.
His military and civilian advisers, along with foreign leaders, forcefully dismissed the proposal. So, according to NBC, he outsourced Venezuela policy to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who, along with National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, began coordinating with the Venezuelan opposition. On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence calledon Venezuelans to rise up and overthrow the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. On Wednesday, the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, the heretofore unknown 35-year-old Juan Guaidó (whose political godfather is, according to The Washington Post, jailed far-right leader Leopoldo López), declared himself president. Guaidó was quickly recognized by Washington, followed by Canada; a number of powerful Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia; and the United Kingdom.
Trump has a wobbly sense of history, but his instinct to see Venezuela through the prism of Panama is on the mark. Similar to Panama then, Venezuela is today a nation suffering a long, seemingly insurmountable crisis, governed by a regime challenged by a united (or united enough) opposition, which Washington can use to justify intervention and then install in power once the intervention is complete.
And Trump, looking at Venezuela, is doing no more than George H.W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan before him, who both used a one-off war in the Washington’s “backyard” to reorder domestic and international politics. Latin America and the Caribbean have long been Washington’s workshop, especially useful as a place where rising political coalitions can regroup following moments of global crisis, where they can not only rehearse military and destabilization strategies but also sharpen their worldview and work out moral justifications for intervention.
Reagan’s 1983 invasion of Grenada won praise from many Democrats, who celebrated overcoming not just the trauma of the Vietnam War but the Iran-hostage syndrome. One columnist, previewing today’s reality-showization of politics, said that the invasion gave “American television” one of its “better weeks.” The Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, called the invasion “justified,” as did another harsh Democratic critic of Reagan, Thomas Foley. “Years of frustration were vented by the Grenada invasion,” said New Jersey Democrat Robert Torricelli. Bush’s follow-up invasion of Panama gave television an even better week, and brought the same kind of domestic praise. Both invasions, especially the one of Panama, helped to erode the principle of non-intervention—the foundation of the New Deal diplomatic order—and restore to international law the premise that the United States has the right to wage war on sovereign countries not only in the name of national security but for a higher moral purpose, such as the protection of lives or the defense of human rights.
It seems clear that Trump, himself presiding over a nation suffering a seemingly insurmountable crisis and challenged by a united (or united enough) opposition, is desperate for something to break the deadlock. A quick tour d’horizon reveals strikingly few opportunities. Iran is too risky, for now, and his predecessors have racked over what’s left of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Venezuela beckons.
We are seeing, sort of, the same kind of coming together witnessed in the run up to Panama and Iraq. “On Venezuela, Where Are Liberals?” wailedthe headline for a New York Times column by Bret Stephens last year. They’re with you Bret, they’re with you. Representative Eliot Engel, who now chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, supports Donald Trump’s Venezuela position, promising to introduce legislation to back it up, and he’s backed by Florida Democratic Representative Donna Shalala. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted “America stands by the people of #Venezuelaas they rise up against authoritarian rule and demand respect for human rights and democracy.” In Florida, Andrew Gillum, who narrowly lost a contested governor’s race to a right-wing Trumpian (and who was himself was redbaited in that campaign and linked by Trump to Maduro), likewise tweeted out support of Trump’s Venezuela policy. NPR’s coverage was fawning. “This is the right call. Thank you, Mr. President,” tweeted Jeb Bush.
For its part, most of the rising social-democratic wing of the Democratic Party has been slow to respond. California representative Ro Khanna was perhaps the first among the congressional left to criticize the bid for regime change, and he did so forcefully, as did, later, presidential candidate and Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard. Bernie Sanders botched his response, leading by accepting the premise of Trump’s intervention, that Maduro’s presidency was illegitimate, before noting that the United States “has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries; we must not go down that road again.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s response has also been muted.
Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar provided the strongest statement: “We cannot hand pick leaders for other countries on behalf of multinational corporate interests,” she said. “If we really want to support the Venezuelan people, we can lift the economic sanctions that are inflicting suffering on innocent families, making it harder for them to access food and medicines, and deepening the economic crisis.” Those sanctions had considerable Democratic Party support.
Maduro, the former vice president to the late Hugo Chávez who won a close presidential election in 2013 and then a disputed reelection in 2018, might fall: The coordination—detailed here in The Wall Street Journal—between the opposition and the White House is impressive, as is Washington’s ability to whip together international backing. That’s different from 1989, when every country in the Organization of the American States, including Pinochetista Chile, opposed Bush’s invasion. Or from 1983, when, in the face of OAS opposition, the Reagan administration had to invoke treaty obligations with the microscopic Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to justify its assault on Grenada. In Venezuela, unlike in past rounds of opposition protest, poor people from historically Chavista neighborhoods seem to be joining the calls for Maduro’s ouster (Rebecca Hanson and Tim Gill, at NACLA, here, have a good survey of the current situation).
How the Right Is Using Venezuela to Reorder Politics
