The American capture of Maduro violates international law. This seems undeniable. But should international law always be treated as absolute? Is it always preferable to let a dictator brutalize his own population than to violate national sovereignty to stop him? To answer affirmatively is to say that, ultimately, the world has a duty to silently watch genocides committed by tyrants within their territories. Venezuelans themselves want the end of the regime, as attested in the 2024 elections. The 20% of Venezuelans in the diaspora celebrate the dictator's fall. It is impossible not to take this into account. Ideally, there would be a multilateral and democratic process at the UN to depose tyrants who oppress and are hated by their own population. It would be isonomic and would not serve the geopolitical convenience of either power. Unfortunately, we all know that the UN is currently inoperative and that this type of decision will never come from it. In the absence of this possibility, it is up to the greatest world power, which happens to be a democracy, to take specific actions like this. Evidently, they will always be selective (why one dictatorship and not another?) and limited by the national interest. Even so, they can have positive results for the target countries of intervention, as occurred in Germany, Japan and South Korea. The problem is that at the helm of this power is Trump, who is very explicit in his contempt for any greater value — such as democracy or freedom — that sustained the liberal order that the US helped to create in the post-war period. Will Trump be able to redemocratize Venezuela? Does he even want that? At this point, we don't know. The choice to maintain the structure of the regime instead of sweeping it away to rebuild the State with opposition names (as was done in Iraq) in itself does not indicate anything. It is an option for stability and security, which says nothing about the transition to the departure of the Chavistas and free elections in the future. It was an action consistent with Trump's National Security Strategy, which paints the Western Hemisphere as America's backyard. As no one on the continent can oppose him, and as China and Russia do not seem willing to fight, Thucydides' maxim applies: "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must". If aligning a country with the US means overthrowing its dictator and bringing democracy, great. But what if an aligned dictatorship is even more palatable to American interests? The American justification, moreover, only increases the concern: the pretext for attacking the country was to capture a drug trafficker. This justification does not differentiate between democracies and dictatorships. As with so many moral dilemmas, subsequent results will provide the answer. If, a year from now, Venezuela has regular elections, good management and individual freedoms, the intervention will have been correct. If, on the contrary, the country is lost in the chaos of a civil war or if it is still under an autocratic regime (now pro-US), it will have been bad. The history of recent interventions and the explicitly selfish motivation of the Trump administration do not paint a very promising picture. Only time will tell. Until then, I join in the hope of millions of Venezuelans. LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access seven free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.
