During these days of Democratic hopes for Venezuela, when victory finally appears within reach of the people, memories of the Bay of Pigs debacle return to many Cubans who lived through that experience. They wonder if Donald Trump —whose determination is certainly vital to the success of the Venezuelans effort to liberate their country– will not be invaded, as happened to Kennedy in 1961, by last minute hesitations that endanger this offensive against the Narco-dictatorship of Cubazuela, the most important Cuban colony in South America.
Any offensive – political or military – requires careful planning, concentration of all necessary resources to ensure its success and, once initiated, it cannot stop until the enemy is defeated. As some think they see some pause, just a slowdown, in this offensive against the Maduro regime, they have valid reasons to worry. Pauses give an adversary the opportunity to get out of the initial daze and then organize his own offensive. There are signs that this is already happening.
These days, North Korea, Russia, China and Iran are carefully studying the White House performance in Venezuela and drawing their own conclusions. The hesitation and consequent defeat of JFK in April 1961 created the false perception in the Kremlin that it was feasible to blackmail the White House by installing nuclear missiles in Cuba a few months later. The Cold War became more dangerous after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
But the negative geopolitical strategic consequences of a withdrawal in Venezuela would be tripled compared to those caused by Kennedy’s last minute hesitation in 1961.
In the short term, Kim Jong-un’s attitude at the next Summit, Putin’s decision on possible military countermeasures to the US exiting the intermediate missile treaty, and China’s intransigence or concessions in the current trade negotiations are all connected to the firmness shown by the White House in the coming days regarding the dictatorship in Venezuela. The same is true for terrorist groups such as FARC, ELN, Hezbollah, and others. In addition, the Cuban regime would strengthen its military and intelligence interference in Caracas and the domino effect from the fall of Maduro would fade away.
In the medium term, the regional impact of Cubazuela’s fall would be for Latin American the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall for Europe. The return to the island of tens of thousands of Cubans, eyewitnesses of what has happened in the neighboring country, would have a toxic ideological effect greater than the one brought by young scholars returning from the USSR after having experienced Glasnost and Perestroika.
The forensic analysis – with documents, testimonies and evidence – of the conspiracies and corruption among the leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, behind their plaintive humanist speeches, will endow Latin Americans with ideological antidotes against future Demagogues who promise Paradise as a prelude to the establishment of Hell. The tragic story of Cubazuela deserves to be thoroughly exposed and documented.
On the other hand, the denouement of Cubazuela´s history will be an electoral issue in 2020 in the US, especially in Florida. If the international enemies of the US recoil everywhere in the face of real red lines wilfully drawn in Venezuela, that would undoubtedly benefit President Trump’s re-election. Of course, the same is true the other way around.
Supporting this effort to free Venezuelans from their status as a Cuban colony in South America is the only lucid and decent thing befitting this hour of definitions.
Cubazuela’s monstrosity must fall. Putting other considerations of domestic policy before this purpose is tantamount to abandoning Venezuelans to their fate and allowing the definitive consolidation of a hotbed of regional destabilization and a base of operations, hemispheric and global, for the international enemies of the United States.
Hitting or missing today in South America will decide the course of world geopolitics for many years.