Venezuela exploits Biden’s weakness
Washington Examiner
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Not content to subjugate and impoverish his own people, Venezuela’s dictator, President Nicolas Maduro, is casting his malevolent eyes on a new prize.
Guyana or, more particularly, its oil reserves.
BIDEN’S WAR ON FAITH AND FAMILY CONTINUES
Venezuela is home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves. The South American nation of 28 million people should be an economic powerhouse. Instead, after decades of socialist kleptocracy under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is an economic basket case. There was a temporary respite in 2022, but Venezuela’s economy is once again in crisis. Oil exports remain critical to propping up Maduro’s dictatorship with a flow of foreign capital. But excessive government spending, inflation, corruption, and poor oil field maintenance have limited his ability to buy himself out of the problem. That makes Guyana a tempting target.
Surveys conducted since 2015 show very large untapped reserves under the Guyana-adjacent Essequibo region. In a staged referendum on Sunday, which was ignored by many disenchanted Venezuelans, Maduro received approval for his claim that Venezuela is the rightful owner of Essequibo. This is a claim without political or historic merit.
The Biden administration has, however, responded with predictable weakness to Maduro’s new hemispheric threat.
In October, the administration gifted Maduro a six-month sanctions waiver allowing trade in Venezuelan bonds and U.S. engagement in its oil sector. In return, Biden earned Maduro’s absurdly disingenuous commitment that next year’s elections would be free and fair. He evidently believes that Biden is distracted by the Middle East crisis, or simply weak. Perhaps he believes both, which would hardly be a surprise or unmerited. Whatever is the case, the dictator senses that he can threaten without significant risk of provoking a response worth worrying about.
Biden can share the blame. Brazil’s far-left President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva talks often about human rights and anti-imperialism, but his military intervention in Guyana’s defense is unlikely. He has made only a token military deployment to Guyana’s border. One can hardly blame Maduro for his cockiness. He knows that if America were to act alone against him, he could scream “Yankee aggression!”
Biden’s leadership on Ukraine has been somewhat praiseworthy, as has his bolstering of U.S. alliances against communist China. But he has also shown repeated willingness to blink when faced with other foreign policy threats. He has refused to provide Ukraine with weapons it needs.
He chaotically abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies, ludicrously claiming that retaining a small residual force that took few casualties was too high a price to pay. He has scrambled to restore the flawed Iran nuclear deal, tolerating repeated terrorist plots so as to keep talks bubbling. And Maduro cannot but notice what’s happening right now in the Middle East, where Iran’s proxies fire missiles, explosive-laden drones, and rockets at U.S. warships and bases, and Biden responds only minimally. Biden is right to avoid a broader regional conflagration, but the president’s timidity encourages Iran to believe it can act with impunity. It makes a broader war more likely, not less. It makes Maduro more confident, not less, that intimidation will pay dividends.
Maduro is seeking opportunity from American hesitation. Biden must not allow him to do so. It would undermine the security and democratic stability of the Americas, encourage Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to pursue their imperial agendas more forcefully, and it would make the world more dangerous.
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Biden should make clear that he will not tolerate Maduro doing to Guyana what Saddam Hussein did to Kuwait. Encouraging our South American ally Colombia and partners such as Brazil and Argentina to join his warning, Biden should state plainly that any move on Guyana would meet severe repercussions, at least an oil embargo and sanctions to weaken Maduro’s hold on power. Biden should add that a military response would also be possible.
The world is awash with challenges, and Biden should not make it easier for Maduro to put him to the test. But the buck stops at his desk. American interests and international security demand the president find some strength.