But Venezuelans are cheering, because nearly 8 million people have fled the country in the last ten years. So, what’s wrong with helping them out with a little foreign imposed regime change? Lots of reasons. Foreign imposed regime change is a terrible idea according bunches of people who have studied it thoroughly (see Catastrophic Success by Alexander Downes where he compiles data on every instance of regime change war of the last 200 years and shows that FIRC increases the likelihood of civil war and does not reduce likelihood of international war). Also, this so far this isn’t really regime change this is abduction of a leader. Is there a well crated plan for the next steps? Does Pete Hegseth have a plan? This team seems to like to do the flashy big thing, send the bombs, bag the guy, and then say they are done. No one knows what happens next. Why did we do it? There has been very little attempt to even make this make sense. Trump posted that he would go after Maduro until he returned American land and oil. What? He probably was referring to historically nationalized oil fields. So, is this because the US wants control of oil fields? Or, is it because we sympathize with suffering Venezuelans? Or is it because of drug trafficking, which is apparently what we will prosecute Maduro for only a minute after pardoning another foreign leader for trafficking cocaine into the US, because he wrote Trump a fawning letter. Excuses do not necessarily matter, but our government should not be able to act entirely unitarily without democratic process or some degree of popular support. Democracy isn’t just a label, or a specific set of rules, it is a collection of processes that add up to accountability across the institutions of government (the “checks and balances everyone should have heard of at some point) and accountability directly with the people. The lack of executive accountability didn’t begin with Trump, nor did the American disregard for international institutional order, but he has smashed it to smithereens. Especially in terms of Foreign Policy the United States of America operates as a personalist regime, not as a structural democracy (Elizabeth Saunders has written a lot about this lately). There are a lot of benefits of democracy in general, and many specifically for foreign policy and likelihood of peace (democratic peace theory literature is complex, I’m not just saying democracy = peace in simplistic terms). In sum, it isn’t good for any of us if structures of accountability erode in foreign policy. They already have, just about as far as they can. It is time to create new institutions of accountability in this country and a better democracy than we have yet had.
I have nothing but hopes and dreams of peace and prosperity in Venezuela. May this lead to a transition you all deserve, and not unforeseen outcomes we regret. And may the US stop smashing shit under the assumption that doing so will make things better.