{"id":221424,"date":"2026-01-05T10:14:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/221424\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T10:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:14:22","slug":"regime-change-has-only-led-to-chaos-can-venezuela-be-an-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/221424\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Regime change\u2019 has only led to chaos. Can Venezuela be an exception?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, we are told that a \u201cregime\u201d must be \u201cchanged\u201d, and, as is often the case, it is the United States government claiming the right to enforce it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although the term \u2018regime change\u2019 only gained prominence towards the end of the Cold War, the practice of removing a leader or government by force and installing a preferred successor has occurred more than a hundred times in modern history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes it leads to a period of apparent stability, often at significant military or economic cost to the instigating power, like in West Germany and Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it results in civil war as resentful local populations direct their anger at the occupying force and its collaborators, whom they see as traitors or sellouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the occupying power deems the costs of maintaining control too great, violent conflicts can ignite and persist as in Iraq, Libya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/p>\n

Most often, however, it seems to lead to authoritarianism, violence, reprisals, and lasting tensions that can ebb and flow over generations, as evident in Chile, Argentina, Haiti, and Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Nobody \u2013 least of all the architects of Maduro\u2019s abduction<\/a> \u2013 knows what will happen next in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Experts assumed that the US President Donald Trump and Rubio would immediately install Maria Corina Machado, the divisive Nobel Peace Prize laureate, as Venezuela\u2019s new leader, but Trump quickly distanced<\/a> himself from the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This has led to all manner of speculation about the type of \u2018regime change\u2019 we are witnessing: is it a palace coup? Is there a split (or splits) within Chavismo?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is \u2013 and I think this is fairly clear \u2013 there a split in the instigating power\u2019s ruling elite? Isolationists will want a quick result, with Maduro on trial, and agreements drawn up over oil and mineral resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This may suit Trump and his notoriously short attention span, as he can claim victory without worrying too much about the consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawks like Marco Rubio will campaign for something more dramatic, however \u2013 not just the dismantling of Chavismo (which they view as a gross affront to the manifest destiny of the United States), but a stepping stone to action in Cuba or beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And let us not overlook the agency of Venezuela\u2019s government and people. There may well be Chavista politicians confident they can outlast Trump, and they could be right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the popular militias which emerged under the much-missed Chavez may take their own view on where the country\u2019s resources should go.<\/p>\n

Disregard for Venezuelans<\/p>\n

What is painfully clear, however, is that \u2018regime change\u2019 has once again been carried out without any consideration for the population of the target nation.<\/p>\n

As in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, nuanced scholarly analysis of local power structures has been discarded, overshadowed by two persistent discourses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, that this \u2018change\u2019 is legitimate on the grounds of business and property, that somehow the mechanisms of extraction were being \u2018unfairly\u2019 impeded: Guatemala and Iran experienced this in the 1950s, albeit wrapped in the cant of anti-communism.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once again, we are told that a \u201cregime\u201d must be \u201cchanged\u201d, and, as is often the case, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-221424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}