Nicolas Maduro could be hanging out in Turkey right now living the good life under the protection of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Instead, he’s sitting in a Brooklyn jail.
In 2019, when the US led an international push to recognize opposition figure Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful president following a disputed election, Ankara supported the regime in Caracas.
“Brother Maduro, stand up tall,” Erdogan exhorted his strongman counterpart during a pick-me-up phone call. A touching display of autocratic fellowship to be sure. And another reminder that NATO counts a quasi-dictatorship among its ranks.
Late last month, the Trump administration reportedly offered Maduro a deal that would’ve allowed him to leave Venezuela for exile in Turkey. Or perhaps Qatar, where he could’ve lunched with Hamas’s political leadership. (If your steak comes out too rare in Doha, Israel will be happy to bring it up to temp for you.)
Those were the last in a series of what Marco Rubio on Saturday called “multiple” offers that would’ve granted Maduro free passage out of Caracas and into what The New York Times described as “gilded exile.”
“He could’ve been living somewhere else right now, very happy,” Rubio said, during Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago press conference. “He had multiple opportunities to find his way somewhere else.”
Alas, Maduro will instead spend the rest of life in a US prison after a trial where he’ll be caricatured as one of history’s worst people — a combination of Stalin and El Chapo.
Plainly, Maduro has no hope of beating the case. (“Well Mr. President, the jury finds you not guilty. You’re free to return to Miraflores Palace and carry out your duties as before. The court thanks you for your time, and we do apologize for the inconvenience.”)
As for Venezuela, Trump’s gambling on Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s VP. The country’s high court on Sunday decreed that Rodriguez will immediately assume and exercise the powers of the presidency “in an acting capacity.”
Naturally, she was critical in public of Maduro’s capture. “There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolas Maduro,” she declared, shortly after the US “law enforcement” operation which she derided as “brutal aggression.”
Just hours later, Trump said of Rodriguez, “She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again, very simple.”
The first part may be true. That is, maybe Rubio’s in contact with Rodriguez and she is indeed willing to play ball, where that means accept a US-guided plan for a post-Maduro Venezuela with her at the helm. But I doubt it’ll be “very simple,” as Trump suggested.
Speaking of things that aren’t usually “very simple,” I do think it’s possible — and regular readers know I abhor conspiracy theories, but I’d be remiss not to at least mention this in passing — that someone, or several someones, within the regime gave Maduro up in exchange, perhaps, for a promise that the US would leave the rest of the regime intact and not attempt to dismantle the military.
Whether Rodriguez herself would’ve been involved in any such plot I have no idea, but what I do know is that the operation to capture Maduro might fairly be described as “perfect” (forgetting that dozens of locals were reportedly killed). Notwithstanding that a determined US military can generally do whatever it sets its mind to, that raises questions.
Given the sheer amount of air support and other redundancies in place to ensure a “good” outcome on Saturday, comparisons to historical raids are probably apples to oranges. But it’s worth noting that commando operations involving helicopters and target extraction from urban areas don’t usually go off without some sort of hitch.
The US lost a stealth helicopter in Operation Neptune Spear, for example, and on October 3, 1993, during Operation Gothic Serpent, everything that could’ve gone wrong did when Delta Force and a Ranger regiment got pinned down in one of history’s most famous firefights while trying to extract two of Mohammed Farah Aidid’s top lieutenants in downtown Mogadishu.
Military analysts who spoke to the mainstream US media over the past 24 hours used words like “flawless” to describe the final phase of Operation Absolute Resolve. Plainly, the CIA cultivated assets close to the regime, and the Pentagon’s made no secret of that. But my guess is that there was buy-in of some kind from members of Maduro’s inner-circle, and indeed I hope that was the case.
Consider that leaving the regime and the military intact was the only real option if Trump intended to avoid sparking a civil war in Venezuela, not exactly the sort of thing that’s conducive to US development of the country’s oil reserves. If the place devolved into a failed state, even Chevron would’ve likely been forced to leave given security risks.
If Trump could convince (ahead of time or if you don’t like conspiracy theories, after the fact), Delcy Rodriguez and the military that the US is willing to leave the existing government and security infrastructure in place, at least for the time being and with an understanding that US super-majors will be allowed into the country, he might be able to settle his personal vendetta with Maduro without turning Venezuela into Libya.
That’s almost surely the plan. What Trump meant when he said the US will “run the country” is a de facto partnership with Rodriguez and an understanding that at the slightest provocation, she too could be “extracted” and the security forces annihilated.
The fact that Trump essentially insulted Maria Corina Machado on Saturday, saying she didn’t have the “respect” necessary to run the country, speaks volumes about his motives. He doesn’t care a thing about promoting democracy unless democracy happens to be the best way to achieve his goals. Here, it’s not. The easiest way to settle the score with Maduro and get to the oil goes through Delcy Rodriguez and the maintenance of a stable security situation.
According to a US official who spoke to the Times, the administration “had already settled on” Rodriguez as “an acceptable candidate to replace Maduro” if only an interim basis. “Intermediaries,” the article said, “persuaded the [Trump] administration that she would protect and champion future American energy investments in the country.”
And that, as they say, is that. Rodriguez’s brother Jorge is President of Venezuela’s legislature, the National Assembly. He was vice president in 2007 and 2008 when Hugo Chavez expropriated the assets of foreign oil companies during the final push to nationalize Venezuela’s oil industry.
Their father, Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, was a Marxist militant who famously orchestrated the kidnapping of US businessman William Niehous. Niehous spent three years in jungle captivity before local police stumbled on his location and rescued him in 1979. Niehous died in 2013, the same year as Chavez.
I’ll start by saying that I will celebrate the images of Maduro in custody for the reminder of my days on this planet. I do not condone any action taken by this administration regarding Venezuela, but I am at least relieved that their motives are clear, says a lot about Trump and his cronies that they don’t feel the need to hide their thirst for Venezuelan oil and mineral resources (soon to belong to the US). I don’t think you are speculating on conspiracy theories when mentioning that the US had inside support and cooperation. I am still in touch with people in both the regime and opposition and they all confirm this theory. Will it work? To use Delcy Rodriguez as a puppet while Padrino Lopez and Diosdado Cabello (the actual drug lord) still run the country? I doubt it, if I had to guess further military strikes are likely in the future, the regime already deployed “Los Collectivos” (their paramilitary) in order to repress any large gatherings celebrating Maduro’s capture. I’m not sure dismissing Machado will work either, she is the only person with actual support from the majority of the masses inside and outside Venezuela, she has been thorn for the regime since the days Chavez still called the shots, no other political leader has close to the support the enjoins within the country. The logical step would be to involve her in the process, but I do realize we are not dealing with paragons of logic in the US administration. For now I can hope that removing Maduro is at least a first step towards real change in Venezuela, even if the US and Chevron keep “our” oil, the sad reality is that Maduro and the regime were the only ones benefiting from what remained of Venezuela’s production capacity, at least prior to the nationalization of the oil industry, some of the oil money flowed to the people via infrastructure and the private sector. As weird as is sounds, Trump’s insane press conference yesterday made me a lot more pessimistic about what awaits in the future for the US than what might happen next in Venezuela.
Thanks. I was hoping that you would pipe in on this.
I’m curious about why DJT so quickly dismissed Machado. Might it just be spite over her winning the Nobel prize instead of him?
My guess is DJT does not want anyone who can dim the limelight shinning on him. Machado is an educated, articulate woman immensely popular in Venezuela, all likely negatives in Trmp’s world view, getting the Nobel nod over him probably did not elevate her status within the administration either. At this point I think the deal to remove Maduro looks like a deal among gangsters, “Chevron” gets the oil, Trump the cash and glory and the “old” regime survives so long as it kisses the ring. Sad if it remains that way, but deals among criminals have a tendency to unravel in unexpected ways…
Your dark assessment meets the Occam’s razor test for me. I don’t expect this newborn status quo to make it beyond the toddler stage.
It appears that Trump only cares about getting the oil out of Venezuela and not necessarily helping the Venezuelan people to achieve a better economic life or to establish a democracy.
Those things might (hopefully) happen, as a byproduct, but it seems that those aren’t the primary goals. If those are the goals, they will require a lot more effort and help from the US than the current US administration seems willing and able to provide.
Personally, I bet $50M on Darcy, and for two reasons:
When things don’t make perfect sense to me, I attempt to “follow the money”, to make sense of what I can’t, otherwise. Combined with the (shsmeful) truth that I adore a good conspiracy. 🙂
The Maduro indictment. It reads like something a regime hack wrote:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl
What evidence can the US provide of the “transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States”?
Under what US law is it illegal to steal an election in a foreign country we have hardly any diplomatic connection with?
How does the prosecution plan to prove the Tren de Aragua connection? TdA is probably more tangible than Antifa, but still mostly a figment of the US regime’s imagination. Ditto Cartel de los Soles.
Most of the weapons violations ramble on about Mexican cartels and various lower ranking Venezuelans. Is Maduro supposed to take the rap for them?
Presumably, Maduro is entitled to at least the legal representation provided to a petty thief, and isn’t likely to cop a plea. Will we see a Stalinist show trial, or a gross embarrassment of the US legal system?
Maduro is a scumbag and election usurper on a par with our current occupant. But under US jurisdiction, he’s entitled to Amendments 5-8.
What legal system? I didn’t realize that was a “thing” any longer.
The US has no idea of how to remove a dictator and grow a democracy in its place. We’ve never done it. Part of the reason is we back the wrong people, we just can’t say no to a likeminded dictator who swears on his mother’s grave that he detests socialism. I have a feeling that ‘social democrat’ ranks a few steps below ‘commie’ for many a true believer. And besides, Trump doesn’t promote democracy in his own country so why would he do it in Venezuela. Trump’s definition of respect gets tangled up with ‘fear for your life’.
For as long as I have been aware of the grown up world around me (65-70 years or so) we have never back the right people in any country with whom we have had a relationship. We have had the worst foreign policy of any nation on earth … forever.
I’m quite surprised Maduro declined the new apartment in the Trump Gaza Seaside just so he could come to NYC. After the crypto deposit in Trump Media, and the resulting pardon, the talk is he will return to Latin America to manage the Venezuela/Honduras merger along with co-chair Juan Hernandez. The V/C issued stablecoin will use proceeds from fentanyl sales as collateral backing for the coin. All US citizens will be “requested” to invest in the IPO.
The Ukraine Peace Plan
Trump gets Venezuela’s oil;
Putin gets Donbas+;
Kushner gets golf courses in no-man’s-land; and
there’s no US security guarantee, unless, of course, someone scuffs up the putting greens…
Someone should explain to Trump that Putin never fills in his divots–the ultimate insult to any golf club owner.
I’m not sure why it’s so clear that Maduro won’t beat the charges. Why wouldn’t the Supreme Court’s decision about Presidential immunity for anything done in office also apply to other President’s?
As for Machado, it’s probably best that Trump dismissed her as well as Edmundo Gonzalez. The last thing any aspiring leader would want is to be seen being endorsed by the guy who just attacked your country. Even if your glad Maduro is gone, why would you support the foreign guy who wants to take over your country, or anyone he endorses? I’d like to think someone around Trump is smart enough to think these things through, but maybe I’m giving more credit than is due.