U.S. vs Russia over Venezuela. Are we back in 1962? | Editorial

The surprising dawn announcement on Tuesday from Venezuela’s interim President Juan Guaidó that the end was near for Nicolás Maduro, and the violent street uprisings that followed, were hopeful moments for the once-proud democracy, but the most sobering was that Russia, and that likely means Vladimr Putin, asked Maduro not to get on a waiting private plane to Havana. He was told to stay put, just what the United States didn’t want him to do.

Have we suddenly gone back to October 1962? Will the U.S. and Russia battle over their influence on a Latin American country, as they did over Cuba?

Let’s hope not, for the sake of the Venezuelan people — and for us, too. That Cold War conflict ended with 13 days of terror as the Cuban Missile Crisis played out. There are no Russian nuclear weapons pointed at the U.S. here, but there are two volatile world leaders who won’t shy away from an ego scuffle.

We’ll find out in the next few weeks how the adversarial roles played by Russia and the U.S. over Venezuela, with Cuba in a supporting role, will play out in the Trump administration’s foreign policy tool box.

Tuesday began with such hope for Venezuelans in Miami and in their country. At 5:40 a.m., Guaido released a video showing him at a military base with just-released opposition leader Leopoldo López.

Implied was that Maduro’s military leaders had deserted him. The force of street demonstrations would be enough to topple Maduro, and that may have been briefly true, until the Russians stepped in — and likely picked a fight with President Trump. His reaction will be interesting. Since taking office, Trump has rightly denounced Maduro’s government.

By early afternoon, the Maduro government official at the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, went on TV to say the takeover had been defeated. He blamed the presidents of Colombia, the U.S., and Chile, as well as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, for the attempted “coup,” which Maduro had been expecting, he said.

The U.S. rejected that summation of events, but then U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo revealed the Russian connection, saying that Maduro was prepared to leave the country, until Russia convinced him to stay. “He had an airplane on the tarmac. He was ready to leave this morning, as we understand it, and the Russians indicated he should stay,” Pompeo said Tuesday during an interview with CNN. Unbelievable.

What a shame this courageous effort sputtered. This civic/military uprising, dubbed “Operation Freedom,” was intended to open the door to the return of democracy to Venezuela, an attempt to recover the constitutional thread.

This Editorial Board has in the past spoken out against U.S. military intervention. It has said that it should be the Venezuelans who lead the change in their country.

We do not yet know what the outcome of “Operation Freedom” will be, but this we are sure of: Venezuelans are engaged in an important fight to try to recover their democracy, which was once an example for Latin America.

We knew of Cuban intervention, but now possible Russian meddling threatens to complicate and sabotage this noble objective. What

This story was originally published May 1, 2019 at 1:41 AM.