We should be standing in solidarity with the people of Venezuela not engaging with a dying Socialist regime that is the avowed enemy of the United States.
The United States celebrated its 240th birthday last week with fireworks and parades, cookouts and pool parties. Our diligent law enforcement community kept us mercifully safe from the rash of radical Islamic terrorist attacks that have been bedeviling us and our allies. While the country is clearly not on what most Americans think is the right path, and while many challenges are admittedly on the horizon, there is still no doubt that America remains the aspirational nation that offers the best hope of liberty and opportunity.
Which makes for a marked contrast with another so-called “Independence Day” that was marked this year with much less fanfare. It is hardly surprising that there seems little to celebrate in Venezuela’s 205th birthday. When that South American country makes the news today, it is generally for grim reasons—ever more severe shortages of basic goods from bread to diapers, skyrocketing inflation, depressed economic growth and ever-escalating crime rates, led by murder. It’s so bad, in fact, that last Thursday the State Department issued a new warning that the country was now so dangerous that Americans should avoid travel there, because, among other issues, the government of Venezuela does not issue any notification when American citizens are detained.
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The Chávez-Maduro policies have been a catastrophic failure for Venezuelans and are starkly antithetical to America’s interests and principles. Given that, as well as Maduro’s increasingly weakened political position and the tight timeline to get him out of office without anointing his successor, now might seem an opportune moment for the government of the United States to forcefully exert any pressure we have on behalf of the political opposition, and in favor of a swift recall.
But, inexplicably, our Department of State is doing nothing of the sort, and is instead attempting to initiate “dialogue” with the Maduro regime. The State Department issued a statement last week that acknowledged Venezuela’s “extremely difficult” past year, but urged “leaders of all branches of the government to engage in the national dialogue required to effectively address your country’s problems.”
In other words, rather than issuing a call for solidarity with the people of Venezuela as they try to regain their dignity, liberty and rights, our Department of State is proposing throwing a life line to a dying socialist regime that is the avowed enemy of the United States.
Unfortunately this statement is not a one-off; it is part of a deliberate policy initiated more than a year ago that is pursuing rapprochement with the Maduro regime rather than developing a plan to support his opposition. On three separate occasions over the last fourteen months, Secretary John Kerry has dispatched top advisor Thomas Shannon, now serving as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, three times to Caracas to meet directly with Maduro and the top members of his regime. While habitually as anti-American as his predecessor, Maduro has suddenly become open to further interaction with the Yanquis, no doubt recognizing an official, high-level visit from the United States as the life line that it is. State’s misguided approach both indicates to other governments that they can continue to deal with Maduro without any push-back from America, and will demoralize the opposition which might be hoping for robust American support.
Venezuela encapsulates what is going wrong with our foreign policy apparatus. Many crises around the globe are complex challenges in which our best course is to manage a least bad outcome. Venezuela is not such a case as we have a clear option that favors both America’s interests and principles.
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How America is getting it wrong on Venezuela … again. READ –> https://t.co/y2fiDmhfie
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 13, 2016
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