Kelly McParland: Trump is about to find out toppling Maduro was the easy part

The United States has a really bad record when it comes to regime change.

Time and again it’s sought to oust foreign leaders and replace them with more favoured replacements. The success rate isn’t great.

It was a disaster in Vietnam, at a horrendous cost in life. Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, … defeat, disappointment, debacle, take your pick. Again and again the U.S. has proved its ability to go where it wishes, overpower opponents and rid the planet of tyrants and terrorists as it sees fit, only to find the aftermath fails to match expectations.

Just four years ago the Biden administration orchestrated the most recent example, before Saturday’s dramatic events in Venezuela. The hasty and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan damaged Biden’s image so badly he never really recovered. The frantic U.S. flight was so beneficial to political opponents Trump officials are still making hay of it, just recently ordering a review of the withdrawal as “an important step toward regaining faith and trust with the American people and all those who wear the uniform.”

Yet, as the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife demonstrate, presidents have difficulty resisting the potency American military power gives them, even if it means toppling a foreign leader with no guarantee of what might come afterwards. Overthrowing a government while hoping for the best has been a hallmark of past U.S. forays; it’s the toppling that grabs their attention, the future being left for later. It’s a big reason the outcome has so often delivered disappointment.

There’s no dispute that Maduro has been a calamity for his country. By all the evidence he’s been as grasping and pitiless a despot as you could find this side of Moscow. He’s been in power since 2013, holding onto office through a mix of corruption, violence and fixed elections, driving the economy into the ground, impoverishing millions and prompting a veritable stampede of desperate Venezuelans fleeing the country.

No one outside his small circle of avaricious cronies is likely to miss him much. His support from Russia, China and Iran drew mainly from his ability to irritate the U.S. This isn’t Trump’s first attempt to impose his will on a foreign power — far from it. But it’s the first time he sent an armada to deliver the message.

What remains to be seen is whether once again it’s the toppling that’s captured Washington’s enthusiasm. If U.S. strategists have a well thought-out plan for supporting and advancing the shattered country Maduro leaves behind, they haven’t mentioned it beyond Trump’s assertion that “we’re going to run the country.” That plan didn’t start out well: while Trump told reporters Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodriquez “was essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Rodriquez soon after gave a speech in Caracas declaring continued support for Maduro and denouncing U.S. actions as “a barbarity.”

Trump appeared to dismiss the possibility power could pass to Maria Corina Machado, officially considered the opposition leader, although she was banned from running in the 2024 presidential election and went into hiding soon after the vote in fear for her life. As an ardent free-marketer and avowed admirer of the U.S. president she might reasonably expect to be looked on favourably, yet nothing is ever certain in the Trump administration. Machado might be a skilled activist and protest organizer, but she’s untested as a ruler and rabble-rousers have a chequered history once in power.

Besides that, Machado won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, an honour Trump believes should have gone to him. And while Machado is “a very nice woman,” Trump said Saturday, she “doesn’t have the support” in Venezuela to lead.

It’s entirely possible others will seek to fill the void. Machado may be better known, but it’s another figure, Edmundo González, who headed the opposition presidential ticket in 2024 and was recognized by the U.S., and Canada, as the winner.

There is no guarantee the Maduro establishment will disappear with him. While Trump posted a photo Saturday of Maduro being moved to the U.S. in handcuffs, the rest of his government remains in place. Rodríguez was sworn in as interim leader, surrounded by Maduro’s defence minister, attorney general and top legislators and judges.

Good governance may be far from the first item on the White House to-do list. The Trump team has made no bones that it’s overwhelming concern is in doing deals viewed as profitable to U.S. interests, which in Venezuela’s case would mean ready access to its massive oil reserves. The U.S. justified it’s actions against Caracas as a war on the drug trade, but even before Saturday’s intervention Trump accused Venezuela of illegally seizing U.S. oil.

“You remember they took all of our energy rights,” he told reporters. “They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back.” After Maduro’s capture, Trump announced that “we’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

Past U.S. experience suggests the most difficult part of Washington’s Venezuelan incursion.

Iraq remains host to 2,000 U.S. troops and an array of hostile armed militias loyal to Iran, with an insecure government caught between the two, struggling to avoid an explosion. More than a decade after its “liberation,” Libya is a divided country, riven by civil war, with competing warlords and rival governments at opposite ends of the country. Afghanistan, meanwhile, is back in the hands of the Taliban, 20 years and thousands of deaths after Washington and its allies set out to evict them.

Saddam Hussein is gone. Muammar Gaddafi is gone. Osama bin Laden’s remains were dumped at sea, all thanks to U.S. interventions. With Venezuela now in his hands, President Trump hopes to perform the difficult trick of repeating the same action over again while hoping for a different result.

National Post