That famous Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, might have characterized Donald Trump’s recent coup in Venezuela as being deja vu all over again. There seems to be a recurring American theme of deposing villainous dictators and bringing Pax Americana to their beleaguered countries. Recent instances that come to mind are Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump’s Venezuelan venture might be better characterized as Pox Americano.
Putting aside the illegal nature of Trump’s actions under both U.S. and international law, this foray south of the border promises to be a major fiasco. That will certainly be true if Trump intends to have Marco Rubio “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” That probably means until U.S. oil giants have Venezuela’s huge oil reserves under their complete control. That would likely take a decade, if the country could be stabilized and made safe.
Sad experience in our two forever wars would indicate that Trump’s end goal will never be achieved. The U.S. is still experiencing the reverberations from our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have finally managed these 50 years later to outlast our disastrous conclusion of the Vietnam War in which I served.
The experience in Iraq is probably most instructive here. We invaded in 2003, quickly deposed Saddam Hussien and were then stuck in a quagmire for over a decade, trying to make a safe, proper and judicious governmental transition. That totally unnecessary war will end up costing almost three trillion dollars–about $2 trillion in direct costs and another trillion for long-term care for veterans.
Many Iraqis initially celebrated our invasion, particularly the Shia Muslims who had been viciously oppressed by Hussein. Many Sunni Muslims, who had held positions in the dictator’s forces but were denied participation in the new government, took up arms. When the U.S. was unable to provide a government that provided security and basic governmental services, a full-fledged civil war erupted with U.S. troops taking fire from both sides. American casualties in the melee were 4,418 dead and 31,994 wounded. Estimates of Iraqi deaths range from several hundred thousand to over a million.
There is little doubt that the decapitation of the Venezuelan government will fuel a quest for power by competing factions. The Maduro faction will desperately try to keep its hold on power, while it is certain that others will contest them, just as happened in Iraq. Rubio will have to either step away from forming a governmental structure, which will result in chaos, or try to impose a structure with the backing of U.S. troops, which will also result in chaos. In the meantime, the Maduro underlings are still in charge of the country and there is no indication that they will be any more enlightened than Maduro. Delcy Rodriguez, the former vice president, seems to be navigating between Trump and her base, but the substance will hit the fan if she tries to trim their power and privileges.
When the U.S. went into Iraq, it had the benefit of a well-thought-out plan to set up a governing structure. The Bush administration threw it out the window and freelanced without a clue on how to proceed. A marvelous book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran–Imperial Life in the Emerald City– describes the process of trying to form an Iraqi government “as throwing feathers together, hoping for a duck.” The Trump administration does not appear to have done any planning for how to proceed after Maduro’s abduction and will likely have to utilize the duck approach.
The U.S. had many partner nations in our unfortunate ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have absolutely no partners in the Venezuela adventure. Our erratic go-it-alone approach is likely to further distance us from our former allies in Europe and Asia. America is becoming an unreliable and quixotic partner, threatening our standing as the world’s dominant economic and military power since the end of World War Two.
This latest fiasco will not sell well with our allies in Asia or Europe but should resonate with our sworn enemies. Russia’s Putin will use it to justify his genocidal war against Ukraine. China’s Xi Jinping will certainly use it when he makes a play to conquer Taiwan. If the U.S. can decapitate a country in its presumed sphere of influence, why should dictators elsewhere not be able to do the same?
Trump claims he is merely pursuing a version of the Monroe Doctrine that posits the U.S. must maintain control over the Western Hemisphere. That is not where the strategic threats facing America are located. Our mortal enemies are Russia and China. We ought to be focusing our military forces against them, instead of wasting them on dictators who don’t pose existential threats to our national security.
It’s time to break the self-defeating deja vu cycle and start getting serious about protecting America’s vital security interests.
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