#333: Maduro Captured: Global Implications

The fake president Maduro is gone. For now, his vice president and partner in crime is in charge. Venezuela is still a failed state with a ruined economy, a brutalized population, and an extremely oppressive system that used to be supported by Russia.

Maduro is gone. He had already lost elections in ’24 but faked the result and pushed the legitimate winner abroad. His system is still there but he is gone.

There are two kinds of responses because there are two kinds of people. There are those who have suffered from dictatorship and who know how it feels like, and those who have not suffered from it or who may have benefited from it.

As someone who grew up in a brutal dictatorship, my immediate reaction when I read it on Saturday was joy. If you haven’t lived in a real dictatorship, you may not know how this feels. And with dictatorship, I don’t mean you don’t like who’s been voted into office and you don’t agree. No, real systemic dictatorship where you cannot trust any official, where the state is the criminal.

So I felt joy as someone who has shared this bond. I feel deeply with those in Venezuela who have been oppressed or who have had to flee. Joy is the reaction. And this was and continues to be my emotional reaction.

Now, maybe with fewer emotions. What matters now is the aftermath. And you’ve probably heard a lot of analysis already. So you know that a lot of people are skeptical—why and what now—and so yeah, this skepticism is mandated.

Venezuela is still governed by Maduro’s people. And we are talking here not about, well, maybe that person is now a better person. No, we are talking about people who have been complicit in all the crimes committed by this government. We’re talking about people who believe in Maduro, in Chavismo, who have already taken a failed oil-based economy and made things even worse and have been punishing critics and not even delivered a functioning system instead.

Venezuela is not yet free. This is a job maybe not even half done. It is not over. So, we have to wait and see what the rest of Venezuela’s illegitimate government does. Otherwise, this well, Operation [unclear] may continue.

Was there a choice? Well, there’s always a choice not to do anything, but you know, this is like you have a wound that keeps festering. Maduro recently warmongered towards Guyana, and that would have involved Brazil because the only way towards Guyana would have been through Brazil really.

Maduro was allied with Russia and China who are at war with us. We keep not wanting to hear that they are at war with the West. We may not feel like we are, may not want to be, but they certainly are. People sometimes call this a hybrid war. But again today, communication cables in the Baltic were cut. We have destabilization efforts all the time.

Ukraine was attacked by Russia because it wanted to join the European Union. Not just NATO, the EU. China is aggressing towards Taiwan, the Philippines. This is a global threat that we are living under. And you have an axis of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and used to be Syria.

So maybe there is a foreign policy motive here too. Well, when I said maybe, let’s just look at this. As I mentioned, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba are Russian allies. And I know that Trump is saying strange things with regards to Ukraine and Russia and he’s acting strangely with regards to Putin. These continuing fake negotiations with Putin are annoying because Trump seems to keep talking in Putin’s favor, and Putin seems to be successfully manipulating Trump. I find it all very frustrating and there’s a lot of speculation about why that is.

My position towards this is I don’t want to speculate about Trump too much, but I think the core problem is the United States cannot both be supporting Ukraine and Europe, which it has to do out of strategic self-interest, and at the same time being a neutral arbiter towards Ukraine. It simply cannot stand in the middle between Russia and Ukraine while it really is having to support Ukraine.

Why does it have to support Ukraine? Because a divided West is a failed West. And let’s say this, if Trump really wanted Europe to fail and to become part of Putin’s world, then why would he encourage Europe to arm itself? So there’s a lot of confusion out there, part of the confusion maybe also deliberate to not reveal some thinking, and when I say thinking I don’t necessarily mean Trump only but whoever is working with him. It does not benefit us to think of Trump as stupid.

All this talk aside, this strange meeting with Zelenskyy in the White House aside, all the other strange interactions like embedding a meeting with Zelenskyy in between phone calls with Putin, whatever. But what we see also, or we are maybe not supposed to see, which is happening is maybe strange—acting against Maduro. Is that really in Russia’s interests? Judging by what we hear from Russian officials, it’s not. But it was done. And this wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment—that took months in preparation.

So the other thing, Ukraine is allowed to attack Russian oil and gas infrastructure with US support. And recently again, Trump said he doesn’t like Putin because he’s killing so many people, which is true. Trump has also worked to pull India and China away from Russia. Well, with regards to China, this may prove difficult. India also, well Modi is doing this whole nationalistic thing. So India may want to position itself like it has historically somehow in the middle between everybody.

But just look at what has happened. Russia had a strong ally in Syria. No longer. Iran, still a strong ally of Russia, but a little more weakened after the attacks on the nuclear sites and domestic crisis. The Venezuelan leadership has been decapitated. China is finding out it actually needs to sell its goods to the US and Europe. So, China can’t disentangle from the West.

So, all these things mean whatever Trump may say publicly about Putin, about negotiations is wonderful. But whatever has been happening is something completely different.

Obama also wanted Europe to spend more for NATO. Biden too. It took Trump’s establishing of this threatening posture for Europe to actually do it. Europe is stronger because of Trump. Maybe against Trump too, but maybe if that’s what it takes. Okay. There’s a saying in German—when the roofer slips—if your reputation is ruined, you can really live without problems because they’re already thinking the worst of you. So just do it. Maybe that’s Trump’s game.

But again, this is not about individual presidents. This is about a phenomenon that many people tend to be forgetting. US foreign policy tends to be constant no matter who the president is. That doesn’t mean there can’t be change here and there. There can be some movements here and there occasionally, but it all flows back into the same river.

It is simply not in US interest to have Venezuela continue to be a destabilizing entity. It is not in US interest to have it be a Chinese or Russian base. It is not in US interest to have Russia win in Ukraine.

So, as to Venezuela, to bring this to a close, what was this about? Drugs, immigration flows, protecting Guyana, ending Maduro, destabilizing Cuba, throwing out Russia and China off the American continent, oil. Well, maybe all of it. All of it can be true.

We’re living also at a time when if the American president would say these are my foreign policy aims to fulfill here, no one cares. People care about their own lives, costs. They don’t want to hear the high and mighty pro-democracy, pro-stabilization, anti-dictatorship game. They want to hear what helps them domestically. So if you see Trump’s messaging shift here and there, keep that in mind.

That goes for European leaders, too. If you as a politician cannot sell your foreign policy as a selfish national interest-based policy, you will lose elections. That may be sad, but that’s the case. If you spend too much time on foreign policy, but your domestic policy gets out of hand, that’s a risk.

Anyway, there’s a certain American president that needs to look at domestic issues, too. People see costs rising. People see housing more unaffordable and out of reach than ever before. And we need to address these problems too. So if you hear these factors being pushed as part of the domestic narrative, that’s why it may not be the whole truth.

This is not just about one thing. This has been growing and bubbling up for a while now because the fact of the matter is dictatorships bring instability. They are not good governance. They bring up the wrong people that promote corruption—corruption both financially and of the mind and of other people.

Dictators, when they feel threatened by the opposition, will have to become more brutal. That also desperatizes the population, also reaffirms in people the desire for just a better strongman, which is a danger. Democracies here need to stand for stability, and what is important now—we need to avoid the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. No more ill-planned failed nation building.

So, so much for maybe the less emotional. This is a high stakes game that has been played right now. It may or may not work out, but Maduro gone, this is still a satisfying image.

Now is Iran next? Protests. China? Protests. Russia? Failing economy. Russia not really proceeding much. Ukraine holding on.

But again on Venezuela—sic semper tyrannis. But then the hard work begins. Dictatorships are never about one person. They are about the whole country, the responsibility of citizens and their desire also to want to take responsibility.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!