The Consequences of Venezuela

For those of us on the centre-right, who have always regarded our alliance with the United States as central to our defence and security policy, today is a difficult day. While no one would bemoan the departure of the brutal and illegitimate Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, the manner of his departure is unprecedented. His fall has not been down to a popular uprising within the borders of his own country, it is down to one person. President Donald J Trump. He ordered US forces to seize Maduro and his wife and transport them to the United States, where they will a series of charges in US courts.

There are a number of consequences to this, many of them very worrying for those of us who believe in a world order of international norms.

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It is important to be clear that this is not a war between the US and Venezuela, but many will interpret it as an “act” of war. And the consequences could be dire. As FT commentator Gideon Rachman said this morning: “So when China launches a special op to seize the president of Taiwan: or Russia tries to do the same for Zelensky – what exactly do we say? You can’t do that, it’s illegal?” It’s difficult to argue with that.

Nigel Farage has taken a different view, saying: “The American actions in Venezuela overnight are unorthodox and contrary to international law — but if they make China and Russia think twice, it may be a good thing. I hope the Venezuelan people can now turn a new leaf without Maduro.” But isn’t there a danger of it emboldening both China and Russia? However, it’s interesting that Farage admits it is against international law.

On Monday, no doubt the weekend’s events will feature in discussions between me and Tessa Dunlop on the Where Politics Meets History podcast. The point of the podcast is to look at current news events and try to relate them to similar events on history.

While there are clear differences, I do think there are parallels to be drawn between the seizing of Maduro and the US invasion of Grenada in October 1983. It was ostensibly to protect US citizens, but it resulted in the fall of a Communist regime. Given Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the closest of allies, her reaction was surprisingly volcanic. This is a short extract from my rfecently published Margaret Thatcher biography…

“She was incredulous, shocked and angry. Reagan was taken aback at her reaction, having assumed she would be wholly in favour of action against what was in effect a Communist-inspired coup. He could not have been more wrong. She was angered about the constitutional arrogance displayed by the United States. Her Majesty the Queen remained the head of state of Grenada and thus even if Thatcher herself had not been given prior notice, the Queen should have been. She also spotted the argument that it was rich for the West to complain about and criticise the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and then for America to invade Grenada.

Reagan’s National Security Adviser, Robert McFarlane, was present at the phone call. According to the author Geoffrey Smith, he recalled: ‘It was not a happy conversation. The President was very disappointed, not angry. His respect for her was too deep for him ever to become angry with her. But he was disappointed.’

Margaret Thatcher kept her public remarks fairly temperate, but in an interview and phone-in with the BBC World Service it all came out:

We in the Western countries, the Western democracies, use our force to defend our way of life. We do not use it to walk into other people’s countries, independent sovereign territories… There was no call through the British Prime Minister, the British government, nor I understand the British Head of State before invasion… If you are pronouncing a new law that wherever Communism reigns against the will of the people, even though it’s happened internally, there the United States shall enter, then we are going to have really terrible wars in the world.

This was strong stuff, and it was clear that these events put Anglo-American relations in the cool box, if not the deep freeze, for some time to come. It represented the lowest point of the special relationship in the eighteen years of the Thatcher and Major administrations. Reagan and Thatcher didn’t meet again until an economic summit in London in June 1984.”

As I write, it’s only a few hours after the seizure of Maduro, and before Trump has given his press conference. Keir Starmer has given an interview in which his message was “I want to establish all the facts, and I can say Britain was not involved”. It’s an incredibly difficult scenario for a British prime minister, who will come under pressure from all sides to take a definitive stance, but doing so will risk the relationship he has skilfully built up with Donald Trump over the last 18 months.

Trump will inevitably react badly to any form of criticism from European nations, including Britain. It will, for him, be further evidence of the decline of the old empires. Any criticism will be dismissed as woke, from people who need to get with the new world agenda. He will pitch it as Evil versus Good.

Mark Urban maintains that this is not unprecedented. He says that: “Great powers make the rules up as they go – the US has a long history of it, doing it e.g in Panama and Grenada but even more so under Trump. Russia and China ditto.”

This is true to an extent, but anything that destabilises the world order and international norms will have consequences that are totally unpredictable. Not least for Venezuela itself.

Now that Maduro is out of the picture, what comes next? Will others from the Maduro regime just step in and carry on as if nothing had happened? From what we know, the vice president and attorney general have fled to Moscow, and the opposition leader is in Europe. Nothing is more dangerous than a power vacuum.

Putting Maduro before an American court, as opposed to an international one, sends a signal that America considers itself the world policeman and that US law takes precedence over international law. Having said that, all nations are entitled to defend themselves and their interests, and it is clear that Trump believes Maduro has been part of a narco-war against the United States and deliberately flouting US oil sanctions. As one of my Twitter correspondents, Tom Arkell, says: “If it could be demonstrated in the US courts that Maduro, an undoubtedly illegitimate ruler, had been pushing drugs into the USA, contributing to a huge domestic social crisis, would it be acceptable for the US to remove him? If they could show he was directly damaging their people?” A very good question.

The Americans argue that Maduro was not a legitimate president because of rigged elections. Up to a point. It is not for the US or anyone else to police who rules other sovereign countries, and that’s the point I keep coming back to. Does this set a precedent for America to invade Greenland, for example? This is something I have always ridiculed, but events in Venezuela make you think. Could it also mean that Trump really means what he says about stepping in to the Iranian protests scenario. “Locked and loaded” takes on a bigger significance today.

When this story first emerged, I was whatsapping with a friend of mine. He said this: “Tricky one. If you support it then it’s “what about Putin!”. If you don’t it’s “oh so you secretly love Commies”. If you say “well attacking dictators is ok” it will be “Zelensky is a nazi and cancelled elections”.

And there we have it. Today’s social media in a nutshell.

One other thing. I haven’t seen anyone point out that Tom Clancy must be the modern equivalent of Nostradamus. The plot of his second Jack Ryan novel revolves around toppling a Venezuelan corrupt narco-state regime and installing a female opposition leader.

Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.

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