Venezuela is on the brink of civil war. And the world is watching President Trump.
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The Maduro regime in Venezuela doesn’t have many defenders left these days. Even its own diplomats in the United States are defecting. Maduro loyalists do, however, include at least four Labour Shadow Cabinet ministers, who have signed a letter to the Guardian that warns against American-backed “regime change”.
John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, who under a Corbyn government would be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary respectively, are among the signatories. Others include Richard Burgon, the Shadow Justice Secretary, Dan Carden, the Shadow International Development Secretary, Chris Williamson, Newsnight ’s favourite Corbynista, and seven other far-Left Labour MPs. There is no question that Jeremy Corbyn, a long-standing Chavez supporter, shares their views, but declined to sign the Guardian letter for tactical reasons.
You might think that these members of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (VSC) — which was created in 2005 to defend the late Hugo Chavez, Nicolás Maduro’s predecessor as president — would be ashamed of their support for a government that has brought Venezuela nothing but famine, hyperinflation and repression. The country with the world’s largest known oil reserves ought to be one of the richest in Latin America. Instead, it is now the poorest. Since last week, when the opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself the new president but Maduro refused to step down, Venezuela stands on the brink of civil war.
The Trump administration has now imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA. John Bolton, the National Security Advisor, warned that under Maduro “adversaries to the United States” had been allowed to penetrate the country. He is thought to have Cubans and Russians in mind, among others. There has been speculation that Bolton, who is among the most formidable members of the administration, would also threaten US military intervention. That has not happened so far, but if Maduro were to order troops to fire on demonstrators, President Trump would come under strong pressure to intervene.
His Cuban-American ally and advisor on Latin America, Senator Marco Rubio, is known to be hawkish and there is a long tradition of US intervention in the region, based on the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. The doctrine states that any attempt by a foreign power to take control of an independent state in the Americas, North or South, would be viewed as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States”. The US reserves the right to use force to prevent such foreign subversion.
Nobody relishes the thought of US troops arriving on the streets of Caracas — least of all Donald Trump, who has so far been extremely wary of risking American lives in such expeditions. He recently threatened to pull out of Syria, prompting criticism that such a withdrawal would be premature and destabilising. It is ridiculous of McDonnell and the other Labour Corbynistas to accuse this “far-Right” President of wanting a repetition of the interventionism that led to the Iraq war, when the risk is just the opposite. The world has never needed a strong US global presence more than it does now.
But even the ultra-cautious President Trump cannot allow Venezuela to descend into chaos. The humanitarian catastrophe that is already unfolding there would be immeasurably worse if civil war were to break out. America First, the President’s copyright-protected slogan, implies that peace in Latin America, too, is a responsibility of his administration.
If Caracas becomes a bloodbath, which could happen at any moment if the military there still obeys Maduro’s orders, Bolton and Rubio won’t shrink from telling Trump to send in the US marines. Russia and China will try to mobilise the United Nations to stop Trump. He is unlikely to be intimidated. Nor are we likely to witness a repeat of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But the Venezuelan crisis is already grave and could yet test Trump’s political abilities as never before. We can only hope that this mercurial President is equal to the task.
