Nahal Toosi is POLITICO’s senior foreign affairs correspondent. She has reported on war, genocide and political chaos in a career that has taken her around the world. Her reported column, Compass, delves into the decision-making of the global national security and foreign policy establishment — and the fallout that comes from it.
As President Donald Trump gloated about ousting Venezuela’s dictator and running the country, and Democrats warned about the dangers of regime change, I kept thinking about a man I met in Havana a decade ago.
He was 29, and he wanted to flee to America. I asked why. After all, then-President Barack Obama was restoring U.S. ties with Cuba. Wasn’t life going to get better? But he pointed out that the communist regime was still in power. If life improved at all, it would take many years, maybe decades.
He didn’t want to wait. After all, he said, he had just “one life to live.”
That young man would probably be cheering Trump now for detaining Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, and hoping the U.S. president follows up in Cuba and beyond. He wouldn’t be alone. Millions of people living under oppressive conditions across the world would love it if the U.S. gave them a chance — even just one shot — at a different path. I’ve heard it from more than a few of them, including many in my birthplace of Iran, where protesters are once again on the march.
But it is not a popular point to make in Washington, where scars from the U.S. regime change operations in places such as Iraq and Libya run deep. Few in foreign policy circles openly support repressive dictators, but many will say ousting them isn’t worth U.S. blood and treasure, especially when the move could fail 1,000 ways and unleash dangerous new dynamics with fallout that lasts generations.
Trump, this weekend’s events suggest, is more of an optimist.
The question now is whether he and his aides can follow up on a regime change operation in a way that doesn’t go completely haywire. Can they put Venezuela on a path that truly gives its people security and freedom? And will they stop with Caracas?
Trump isn’t ruling anything out — including more regime change efforts. My sense in talking to administration officials and others close to decisionmakers is that when Trump threatens the clerics who run the regime in Tehran, he’s serious. When he rails against the Cubans, he means it.
“Just because some tyrant clothes themselves in the symbolism of a state doesn’t make them any less a tyrant or valid target,” a U.S. official familiar with the administration’s discussions told me. I granted this person and others anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Of course, no two regimes or countries are the same. For now, I’m told, the administration wants to see how things play out in Venezuela.
“For the Trump administration, Venezuela is a test case. If it works, what’s holding them back from trying again?” a person familiar with the administration’s internal discussions said.
To be clear, the administration insists its actions in Venezuela are not technically regime change because the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader but rather considers him a drug lord it had to arrest. The administration is arguing, in effect, that it carried out a law enforcement operation, not an act of war that needs congressional approval as Democrats insist.
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it: “Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization, which has taken possession of a country. And he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States.”
Putting aside the messaging tricks, this is regime change. And if American leaders find that the actions Trump just took against Maduro don’t antagonize voters, the tactic of regime-change-by-another-name could be used again.
First though, the Trump administration will have to decide how far it is willing to go in Venezuela.
In a press conference Saturday morning, Trump said the U.S. would “run” the country. It became relatively clear, though, that he meant the U.S. would wield influence over the cronies Maduro left behind, and whom Washington is allowing to stay for now.
Trump noted that the country’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, had been sworn in as interim president. However, Rodriguez gave a speech in which she muddied the waters by saying Maduro was the country’s “only president.”
Trump also said the U.S. would be availing itself of Venezuela’s oil riches, which will no doubt fuel suspicions among global leaders that oil was the reason he went after Maduro. (Trump also really dislikes Maduro on a personal level, I’ve been told by U.S. officials.)
I was startled that Trump downplayed the notion of handing power to Maria Corina Machado. She’s the Venezuelan opposition leader whose alliance election experts believe won the country’s last presidential race.
“She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect, within the country,” Trump said of Machado, who supported the U.S. administration’s campaign against Maduro.
The U.S. official told me that the Trump administration is worried about keeping Venezuela stable, and it does not think Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is strong enough to exert control over Venezuela’s armed forces. The official argued, though, that Machado and her team could run in future Venezuelan elections.
Bill Cortese, a Republican consultant close to the administration, spoke positively of the fact that this U.S. operation didn’t involve putting hundreds of thousands of American troops on the ground and didn’t entirely wipe out the Venezuelan political infrastructure. It was a far more surgical operation.
“I think we are going to see some lessons learned from the past 20 years, particularly Iraq,” Cortese said.
However, Trump has not ruled out more U.S. military operations in Venezuela. He further suggested that what’s left of the regime knows better than to try to undermine the U.S. effort.
I have written before about how the administration has done some preparation for day-after-Maduro scenarios. U.S. officials also are well aware of past U.S. regime change success stories, such as the overthrow of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
But Trump has cut back U.S. spending on democracy and human rights programs, while also reducing humanitarian funding. Trump himself acknowledged how dilapidated Venezuela’s infrastructure — especially its oil apparatus — is, but the country needs help in a vast array of sectors. This is a place where people have endured hunger for years.
“The hard part in these situations usually comes after the dictator is removed,” said Philip Gordon, who was national security adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris and has writtena book about U.S. regime change efforts.
The person familiar with the administration’s internal discussions said that in some ways the Trump team itself could find itself divided over how to proceed.
Does it strike a deal — on oil, drugs, migrants or more — with the remaining regime in Venezuela and leave it in charge, no matter how corrupt and awful it is? Or does it truly bring pressure for it to hold elections and give Venezuelans a valid choice in their future?
Someone such as Rubio, who in the past — before joining Trump’s team — spoke frequently and eloquently of the need to promote freedom and democracy abroad, may push for the latter. Others, such as senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller, whose primary focus is deterring migration, could be content to declare the mission is over if what’s left of the regime is cooperative with American demands.
What will Trump want? What will the famously mercurial president have the patience for? And can people, especially the youth, in other dictatorships count on him to come to their rescue?
At the moment, the safest bet is to believe him when he makes a threat.
