Javier Corrales
When U.S. forces swooped into Caracas in January to seize President Nicolás Maduro, many Venezuelans inside and outside the country rejoiced. Maduro’s ouster seemed to signal the imminent end of a regime that had for years oppressed and immiserated its people. Thanks to bold U.S. action, a government that had rankled its neighbors and sowed instability in the region now appeared destined to fall.
But something peculiar happened. Unusual in the long annals of U.S. intervention in Latin America, the United States removed the dictator but kept the dictatorship. In the past, when Washington decided to intervene militarily to remove a regime, it delivered. Except perhaps for the foiled 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, U.S. military actions in Latin America catalyzed change, deposing regimes or defeating foes in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, and elsewhere. Democracy did not always follow, but the United States did remove its adversaries. In Venezuela, however, the United States got rid of Maduro but left in place his party and allies.
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