U.S. history shadows efforts in Venezuela by Trump team

There’s no doubt Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is a terrible leader. Following in the steps of his predecessor Hugo Chavez, he is further destroying what’s left of a once-prosperous oil state. His human rights record is a disaster.

But the Trump administration’s effort to oust Maduro — it recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as legitimate president last week — revives memories of past unhappy U.S. efforts at regime change. Think Libya, failed efforts in Syria, and Iraq, for starters.

In true Trumpian fashion, there appears to be no Plan B should Maduro hang on, nor any strategy for coping with a failed state if he is deposed. Yet so far Trump’s Venezuela venture has received bipartisan support in Congress.

First, there’s the matter of why we are involved in Venezuela regime change at this moment.

The rhetoric about human rights from the president and Vice President Pence clearly doesn’t cut it; this isn’t a White House that cares about humanitarian causes. Maduro may be the first despot for whom Trump has expressed dislike.

When the Venezuela story broke last week, it looked like a move to distract from the government shutdown.

Yet, as The New York Times has detailed, the effort to dislodge Maduro is mainly the result of a long-running push by Cuban-American Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to engage Trump on the issue. The underlying reason appears to be Cuba: Maduro, like Chavez, is closely aligned with Havana, which long profited from cheap Venezuelan oil. Ousting Maduro would hurt the Cuban regime.

Perhaps this appeared to be the opportune moment: The situation was at boil, with huge anti-Maduro demonstrations on the streets of Caracas. The young, handsome Guaido — directly encouraged by Pence — declared himself the legiti- mate president.

As leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Guaido had a plausible legal basis to take charge, since the last presidential elections were blatantly rigged. Moreover, Washington got many Latin countries to recognize Guaido, with EU nations poised to join if Maduro didn’t schedule new elections.

Yet U.S. intervention is a huge gamble. So far the Venezuelan military is backing Maduro, and it, plus tens of thousands of armed militiamen, has all the guns. U.S. sanctions may deter Maduro from selling oil to the United States, but his strong backers, China and Russia, can take up the slack, while other countries will also buy more discounted oil.

Will the United States intervene militarily if Maduro hangs on? It looks unlikely (despite national security adviser John Bolton’s efforts to hint that this option is open).

That’s a good thing, because, if the military sticks by Maduro, U.S. intervention would be a very bad idea.

“In Venezuela, you would need to go in with a large force and stay for a long time,” says Shannon K. O’Neil, senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “This is not Panama in 1989, where you could take out a leader and have a working government.”

Even if Maduro falls, the big question is what comes after. The country is awash with armed groups; opposition groups are sharply divided.

And, lest we forget, in Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted. In Libya, Washington stayed aloof after helping depose Moammar Gadhafi; the country became a terrorist haven.

So why are we getting into the regime change game again in Venezuela? That is the question Americans should be asking right now.