Opinion | Venezuela Is Not Iraq

Stop making Iraq analogies. This is not the Middle East. There are no Sunnis and Shias and Kurds and Druze shooting at each other. This is a homogeneous society with a long history of democracy. This is not Iraq or Libya or Syria. So stop with those comparisons. I just, I think what we should be making is Latin American comparisons. And those are actually, I think, more helpful and lead to a little bit more optimism. Go on. I want to argue this a little bit because I’m one of those skeptics. And I absolutely hear you. I don’t think Venezuela resembles Iraq in any kind of exact way, but it does seem like there were certainly plenty of ways in which a harder push for regime change gets you into counterinsurgency and civil war dynamics that certainly have existed in Latin America, including in your own experience in past Republican administrations. -Sure. -Aren’t those substantial worries, like the government falls and the criminal gang retreats to the hinterland, makes money off the cocaine trade, and fights a bloody civil war for the next 10 years. OK, yes, all these terrible things are conceivable and very unlikely. Why? Take the colectivos, these paramilitary gangs that are used to beat up people from the democratic parties who demonstrate. They are paid and motivated by the government of Venezuela, by the regime. If that stops, they’ll go away. They’re doing this because they’re paid to do it. They would stop doing it. They’re hired gangs. What you need to worry about is the army and the police under Diosdado Cabello. So if he decides to try to finance and lead an insurgency, kill him. We took out Soleimani, and that’s what he needs to be told right now. Don’t think about it. It will not end well for you. That’s why you need to get the army on the side of democracy. I’m not saying this is easy. What I’m saying is it happened throughout Latin America and it can be done in Venezuela. But what it really requires is that we, the United States, the gringos, get on the right side. That’s what’s missing now in Venezuela. Whose side are we on?