Jon B. Alterman
“Weak nations,” the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in 1990, “will hope that strong nations will be law-abiding.” Moynihan was no apologist for weak nations. An avowed Cold Warrior whose political career was grounded in his loud and unsuccessful opposition to a 1975 UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism, he entitled his memoir of his time as UN ambassador A Dangerous Place. Even so, Moynihan would have been deeply alarmed at U.S. actions in Venezuela last weekend.
His alarm would not have come from any sympathy for Maduro or his ruling clique, nor any embarrassment at a display of U.S. power. In fact, he would have taken pride that the weekend’s events in Venezuela once again made clear that the United States has capabilities—military, intelligence, and otherwise—that other countries can only dream about. Instead, his alarm would have come from how U.S. adversaries and allies alike are likely to respond over the long term, and the dangers of the United States going it alone.
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