Modest Control of Venezuela

There is a line in an opinion piece in The Economist from late May that I just happened to see and really caught my attention. The argument is that an attack on Cuba is a bad idea.

Cuba is not Venezuela. Its dictatorship is more deeply entrenched and ideological. Perhaps Mr Trump might be able to replace the top communists with more pliable leaders, but even the modest degree of control he has established over Venezuela would be difficult to replicate.

The word "modest" grabbed me and despite all appearances it feels right. On January 2 Venezuela was a dictatorship with a high level of poverty and a lot of despair. Now in June none of that has changed except the despair is exacerbated by unfulfilled hope. U.S. control has been narrowly focused on funneling Venezuelan oil profits into a Citibank account in the United States.

One could reasonably argue that it's not inability to control but rather indifference about controlling. I have to chew on that but I don't think the U.S. can control an election campaign once it gets going. Or rather, it can throw its weight around but it'll be really hard to control the pent up desires of millions of Venezuelans. And at some point the Chavista rift will blow open and that won't be controllable either, except by brute force.

In other words, at this moment U.S. control is more tenuous than it seems and is based a lot on acquiescence, a "wait and see" attitude by everyone, a sort of honeymoon. Honeymoons end and reality sets in. When that happens we'll really see how strong U.S. control is.