It's still too early to hail the end of the socialist dictatorship in Venezuela. The American administration's support for popular opposition leader Juan Guaidó – the head of the National Assembly who on Thursday declared himself interim president of the collapsing country – is undoubtedly an encouraging step. We can only imagine how an administration led by the Democratic Party – some of whose leaders didn't hide their admiration for former Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez – would have responded in such a situation. Chávez passed on from this world six years ago, after destroying everything that had made his country prosperous while selling it off to foreign bidders – including Iran and Cuba. The American president at the time, Barack Obama, said his government sought a "constructive relationship" with Chávez's successor, Nicolás Maduro.
The same Obama refused to stand with the Iranian people when they courageously rose up against their Islamist regime in 2009. Democrats in America hold an exceedingly warped view of the term democracy. They fail to support it in the most crucial of moments, when it is on the verge of toppling dictatorial regimes. Supposedly, this is because they don't want it to look as if the United States is intervening in other countries' internal affairs. But when we look at the direction the Democratic Party is currently headed – the more reasonable assumption is that nonintervention in the name of democracy stems from ideological affinity with these dark regimes.
Trump made the right move
Donald Trump, of all people, who declared after his election victory that America would no longer pursue regime change in other countries, did the conscionable thing and stood beside the suffering people of Venezuela. America's immediate show of support for Guaidó spurred other countries, mainly Venezuela's neighbors, to follow Washington's lead and also recognize the opposition leader. As of today, the U.S. refuses to vacate its embassy officials, as per the demand of Maduro, who has decided to sever diplomatic relations with Washington.
But to what extent will the Trump administration be willing to exacerbate tensions? Will Trump, so shortly after announcing a troop withdrawal from Syria, be willing to intervene militarily closer to home? He doesn't have to dispatch ground forces. The U.S. has other military means with which to help the Venezuelan people, but how will Moscow respond? Furthermore, if America intervenes directly in Venezuela's pre-revolutionary state of affairs, it could play into the hands of Maduro and his regime. The regime's popular base of support, which has eroded over the past two years, could unite around an external threat posed by the detested American superpower.
The opposition's unification behind Guaidó's leadership is the first step in the right direction. With that, a government coup will only be possible if the powerful army switches sides and backs the people. As of today, the generals in the high command, who were appointed by the regime, still appear to be loyal to Maduro. Will this continue to be the case when the regime orders the army to suppress the demonstrations? The most recent popular uprising, in the summer of 2017, was put down with a heavy hand, primarily by the civilian militias loyal to the regime which stormed in on motorcycles and gunned down protesters.
I experienced the terror first-hand in the streets of Caracas that summer, which could have been historic but never came to pass. I saw the killings with my own eyes, and I saw how this terror affected the demonstrators.
January 23 is a historically symbolic day in Venezuela. On this day 62 years ago, a civilian-military uprising against the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez ushered in democracy. What is happening in the streets of Venezuela is an attempt to repeat that history.
