In an ideal world, international law would have successfully taken down Maduro after his coup and repression on his people. Countries followed International law (Venezuela is one of the most sanctioned country in the world), but Maduro preferred running the country into the ground, creating one of the biggest exodus in modern times. So what do you do next? They tried the popular uprising in 2019 but the GNB shot at protesters and beat them up pretty bad. I don't know that what the US did is the answer, but I'm struggling to see what would be the right answer? Most counter propositions I've seen have been to let Maduro be and hope Venezuelans do something against the dictatorship. UN can't do much because there's no genocide or large scale war crimes to warrant intervention (security council would probably block regardless). So looks a bit like a stalemate to me. Open to other propositions but US is the first country in 6 years to try and actually do something about the situation and based on what I've seen from people directly concerned with the issue, Venezuelans, they seem to be much happier with US tutelage than a Maduro dictatorship.
Regarding leaving Venezuelans to choose: we have lots of example of countries removing the dictator and leaving. What seems to determine success (Portugal, Spain) vs. leaving a power void where another strong man takes place (Libya, Haiti) is how strong the institutions are. Venezuela, to my understand has weak institutions, so it needs time to rebuild institutions before it can be truly democratic and free.
The US did a tutelage type of set up with Germany (which was pretty successful) but failed in other places (Iraq, Afghanistan). We have to hope that they've learned how to do this more efficiently today. There are things to be hopeful about. If the US manages to rebuild the oil industry in Venezuela, root out the corruption and set up an election, it will for sure be a much better outcome for the people.
People forget that while the middle east went to shit after the US intervened, people's lives were substantially better under US/NATO tutelage: girls went to school, the country was safer, there was freedom of the press, infrastructure improved (thanks to lower amount of corruption). It was unsustainable and as the Talibans took back control they simply ran things back the way they were. But it wasn't the tutelage that made things worse for the people, it was the people that took over after it.
You are right on the inability of enforcement of international law, and you are also right on the stalemate that preceded Trump's illegal intervention. I think the situation in Venezuela is and it was a very complicated one - my impression is that the best we can do is to follow as closely as possible the law to avoid bending reality to our preferences (aka Trump removes Maduro not because he is a dictator but because he wants the oil, and at the same time a massive number of dictators exist and keep on existing untroubled if they are friendly with superpowers).
What does international law say? That you can intervene with UNSC authorisation (as correctly pointed out unlikely to happen) or grave crimes which, for example, happened during numerous repressions (R2P) but no one intervened because not convenient. I would certainly support a more robust utilisation of this principle, here as in places such as Gaza or Iran right now.
Regardless, now that the intervention has happened what we need to ensure is that Venezuela gets actually ruled by its people, not by folks in Washington...
![Andrea Venzon [English]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_TTE!,w_120,h_120,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Facd73441-dd62-4692-b623-54f4cf7c2bb7_1231x1231.png)
In an ideal world, international law would have successfully taken down Maduro after his coup and repression on his people. Countries followed International law (Venezuela is one of the most sanctioned country in the world), but Maduro preferred running the country into the ground, creating one of the biggest exodus in modern times. So what do you do next? They tried the popular uprising in 2019 but the GNB shot at protesters and beat them up pretty bad. I don't know that what the US did is the answer, but I'm struggling to see what would be the right answer? Most counter propositions I've seen have been to let Maduro be and hope Venezuelans do something against the dictatorship. UN can't do much because there's no genocide or large scale war crimes to warrant intervention (security council would probably block regardless). So looks a bit like a stalemate to me. Open to other propositions but US is the first country in 6 years to try and actually do something about the situation and based on what I've seen from people directly concerned with the issue, Venezuelans, they seem to be much happier with US tutelage than a Maduro dictatorship.
Regarding leaving Venezuelans to choose: we have lots of example of countries removing the dictator and leaving. What seems to determine success (Portugal, Spain) vs. leaving a power void where another strong man takes place (Libya, Haiti) is how strong the institutions are. Venezuela, to my understand has weak institutions, so it needs time to rebuild institutions before it can be truly democratic and free.
The US did a tutelage type of set up with Germany (which was pretty successful) but failed in other places (Iraq, Afghanistan). We have to hope that they've learned how to do this more efficiently today. There are things to be hopeful about. If the US manages to rebuild the oil industry in Venezuela, root out the corruption and set up an election, it will for sure be a much better outcome for the people.
People forget that while the middle east went to shit after the US intervened, people's lives were substantially better under US/NATO tutelage: girls went to school, the country was safer, there was freedom of the press, infrastructure improved (thanks to lower amount of corruption). It was unsustainable and as the Talibans took back control they simply ran things back the way they were. But it wasn't the tutelage that made things worse for the people, it was the people that took over after it.
You are right on the inability of enforcement of international law, and you are also right on the stalemate that preceded Trump's illegal intervention. I think the situation in Venezuela is and it was a very complicated one - my impression is that the best we can do is to follow as closely as possible the law to avoid bending reality to our preferences (aka Trump removes Maduro not because he is a dictator but because he wants the oil, and at the same time a massive number of dictators exist and keep on existing untroubled if they are friendly with superpowers).
What does international law say? That you can intervene with UNSC authorisation (as correctly pointed out unlikely to happen) or grave crimes which, for example, happened during numerous repressions (R2P) but no one intervened because not convenient. I would certainly support a more robust utilisation of this principle, here as in places such as Gaza or Iran right now.
Regardless, now that the intervention has happened what we need to ensure is that Venezuela gets actually ruled by its people, not by folks in Washington...
Agreed!