Almost exactly a month ago we cautioned in these pages that “the biggest threat facing global stability is the escalating tension between the US and Venezuela”.
The first part of that prediction has played out. The US launched a brazen operation at the weekend, bombing strategic targets in Caracas and extracting President Nicolás Maduro.
We claim no special prescience. It was obvious to all observers that strategic planning was afoot when the US assembled its biggest military presence in the Caribbean since its invasion of 1989 and capture of de facto dictator Manuel Noriega — a parallel that has been frequently invoked in recent days. The insultingly thin justification that Venezuela posed an inordinate narcotic “terrorist” threat was not supported by fact or common sense.
Indeed President Donald Trump himself has had little patience for pretence. His warnings to Maduro have been clear: “You Got to Surrender”. Maduro is now imprisoned in New York where he pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against him yesterday. Trump has said that the US will run Venezuela in the interim: “We need total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country.” The proclamation buttresses the logical assumption that regime change was the primary objective of the provocations.
The proclamation buttresses the logical assumption that regime change was the primary objective of the provocations.
The next part of our December prediction is one we would rather not come to fruition. Global stability and the legitimacy of the institutions that underpin our planet’s way of life are both under threat. The violation of an independent nation’s sovereignty has to be met with universal condemnation. Anything but will be a surrender to Greek historian Thucydides’ famous aphorism: “The powerful do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”
The prevarications from traditional allies have been predictable. Europe has broadly spoken in euphemisms, celebrating Venezuela’s democratic path correction while obligatorily murmuring that it does not condone the method used to get there.
Where it does get interesting is the red line the continent has drawn over the medium- and long-term governance of the country.
“It’s obviously for the Venezuelan people to run the country as it is for any people across the world,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said. “Wherever and whatever country we’re talking about.”
Trump, in his own words, intends to cross that line. And is likely to violate many more while he strides under a cloak of impunity.
Maduro’s illegitimate regime has also served as a useful cover. Sympathy is not easily given to an unpopular dictator who recently stole an election. But we must resist the temptation to allow that reality to obfuscate the fact that a crime was committed when a sitting leader was seized from sovereign soil. International law — such as that which underpins any democracy — only operates effectively when it is blind.
It may well be a slippery slope if we allow our global conscience to waver.
Trump, relishing the weekend’s momentum, has already promised that he is "very serious" about taking Greenland — an early second-term ambition that some mistakenly thought he had moved on from. The assured death of Nato is seemingly acceptable collateral.
One need only look to the Christmas Day bombing of insurgents in northern Nigeria for further evidence of the increasingly trigger-happy American disposition.
Trump makes an extraordinary number of claims and threats — many ridiculous. But his power on the world stage comes from the reality that no-one would ever doubt his willingness to execute even the most outlandish among them.
It would be foolish to try to predict his next move. Energy would be better spent — across all media and diplomatic circles — in being unequivocal and unanimous in our condemnation of the crime that has already taken place.
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