TEHRAN (FNA)- The United States government led by President Donald Trump has entered a dangerous moral universe.
As the cult of regime change in Washington walks farther and farther down a destructive path where they see one another only, and as their new adventure in Venezuela points for yet another geopolitical and humanitarian disaster, just like what happened in Syria and Yemen, they will end up having abandoned some of their self-styled fundamental claims about morality, human rights, respect for fundamental norms of international law.
In making their pitch, they have forced more than a dozen European countries to recognize the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the country’s legitimate president. In lockstep with the US, Guaidó has asserted that the time for dialogue is over. His intransigent opposition to negotiations is perhaps another reason to question his motives. This comes despite continued United Nations, Chinese and Russian support for Nicolás Maduro’s government and national dialogue.
There is no question that Venezuelans are suffering and some even want to see a change in governance. But that has to come through national dialogue and democratic means and not foreign-instigated regime change campaign that they know fully well will be disastrous. Guaidó stands firm in rejecting dialogue and has not even ruled out a possible call for US military invasion on his behalf. Is this an acceptable norm for a leader who should leave no stone unturned to save his nation from war devestation. Many continue to identify as Chavista, and even those who have shed this identification continue to acknowledge that the Bolivarian Revolution once improved their livelihoods - and could do again. They also support dialogue, because it is a much better option than the current US plan to starve Venezuelans into revolt by applying crippling economic sanctions and military intervention.
There should not be any doubt about what the political class in Washington is pushing for in Venezuela as well: a military overthrow of the Maduro government. The situation is messy, and there are multiple interpretations concerning the origins of the political-economic crisis in Venezuela, as well as how to solve the political crisis and reboot the Venezuelan economy. But Washington seems intent on interventionist strategies - even a military solution. Nearly every day over the past weeks, both National Security Adviser John Bolton and Republican Senator Marco Rubio have called on the military to align with Guaidó, “defend democracy,” and oust Maduro, in great violation of fundamental norms of international law and UN Charter.
The Trump administration has imposed harsh sanctions on Venezuela that portend economic catastrophe as they directly affect the working class. These illegal sanctions target the lifeblood of ordinary citizens, the state oil company, and its sales to the US and world markets. The aim, of course, is to weaken Maduro’s position by taking away the government’s most important source of revenue. But this has already backfired. Many Venezuelan citizens blame the Trump administration for worsening the economic crisis. And they certainly blame Trump and his cult of regime change for not allowing the Maduro government to fix the economy and build support for international mediation.
If these sanctions do break the government, if the US manages to impose regime change, it is likely many people will feel that whatever comes next is the product of American coercion. On the other hand, even if the opposition centered around Guaidó wins a presidential election, that government will certainly face questions regarding its own legitimacy. Even for many of those who do not support Maduro, anti-imperialist sentiments still run deep; elections that take place as a result of US strong-arming will be tainted by these dynamics and more.
In the prevailing environment, the conclusion is clear: Guaidó’s rejection of dialogue and announcement assuming the role of interim president was a bad political move first and foremost. Now the political crisis is in a stalemate, because he didn’t wait for the next elections and he refused to talk to President Maduro for some kind of national reconciliation and political resolution to the crisis.
More than anything else, his supporters, the cult of regime change in Washington, in granting diplomatic recognition to Guaidó’s “government”, created a precarious situation by confusing a normative judgment about who should run the country democratically and through the ballot box with the objective fact of who does run the country - that is, who actually has control over national territory and the state apparatus.
In this new gamble, in this all-or-nothing approach, don’t be taken by surprise if the "Troika of Tyranny" (Trump, Pompeo and Bolton) continue with economic sanctions and fall into a pattern similar to Washington’s decades-long standoff with Cuba. Who knows, Senator Rubio has hinted they might even follow the same destructive path that turned Syria and Yemen into failed states. What is clear is that their perilous regime change campaigns there on the pretext of “democracy promotion” didn’t work out as planned. Fast forward to 2019, there is no reason to think this time it will be otherwise in Venezuela.
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