Certainly, reality kills any policy rationale. Even though a country may have a previously decided course of action, realities make it change course, even if it sets aside agreements already decided. The US is a world power. It has no interest in what happens to anyone but its own citizens. This is a proven fact rather than a reality. Perhaps the so-called first democracy in the world has strong voices that internally make the balance between what should happen and what actually happens, but what has been internationally called "realpolitik" or realistic politics, defined as "enacting or engaging in diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises", ends up being imposed (see Realpolitick in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik).
This pragmatism of the US realist policy of leaving the Venezuelan opposition, or Venezuelans in general, out of any consideration when negotiating directly with Nicolás Maduro Moros -at the request of the regime itself- should not surprise us, it should even make us feel bad. The US came to negotiate last Saturday, using the cover imposed by the oil supply and the high prices imposed by the war in Ukraine, its legitimate interests, not those of Venezuelans.
Yes, indeed, they spoke with Maduro about presidential elections and a possible return to the negotiating table -something the regime rejected if they did not release Alex Saab-, but the core of the issue was fundamentally the unblocking of the US-Venezuela relations broken as of 2019 with the recognition of Juan Guaidó as President in Charge. They did not come to advocate for the hundreds of imprisoned Venezuelan politicians and military personnel. No. They brought their expert to advocate for their CITGO prisoners. And I ask myself, apart from the opportunity presented by the war in Ukraine, why do something now that they could always do directly? And the answer seems very obvious to me: because since 2019 they have not advanced one millimeter with the solution of the Venezuelan problem with the Government in Charge they have supported since 2019. Hard, isn't it?
Because that's how nations work. If something doesn't work, they throw it out and look for another solution. And the solution now for them is to talk directly to the head of the problem and come to a mutually convenient arrangement. And that's the end of it. If the window of opportunity that opened for Venezuelans in January 2019 had not opened, the US would have already addressed the problem directly long ago. But apparently the worst thing that could have happened to us since 2019 -based on the facts that have occurred- was to have lost 3 years with a Government in Charge that has coexisted with the regime without taking any effective decision to get rid of it. That is unfortunately the reality.
What does the Government in Charge look like after that first meeting of the regime with a high-level US commission composed of Juan Gonzalez, Director for the Americas of the US President's National Security Council, Roger Carstens, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, and James Story, US Ambassador to Venezuela, based in Bogota? Obviously painted on the wall. They came to talk to the head of the kidnapping gang, period.
And it is impossible to have a better composition to negotiate: the envoy of the President of the United States, the US Ambassador to Venezuela, and an expert on hostages. That is what would be sent to talk to a criminal to get him to release some hostages (although unfortunately they did not come to talk about the hostages, who are all Venezuelans). The oil issue was just an excuse because they know for a fact that Venezuela stopped being an oil producing country years ago. But that does not mean that it cannot be again in the future at the request of the US in a political negotiation.
For them, this is the first of a series of meetings that will possibly lead to the gradual disappearance of the Government in Charge and the gradual softening of sanctions, with the consideration that Maduro abandons Russia as the main international support of his regime and Venezuela regains its status as a reliable oil supplier to the US. If Maduro insists on Putin and Russia, it will be to him that the full weight of the gringos' national security will fall because that will not be allowed at the gates of a possible international nuclear conflict or a Third World War. If they didn't tell him at this meeting, they will let him know. And that does not necessarily imply that the regime will necessarily leave power, but that it will be tolerated by the US in the years to come, as has happened with Cuba in more than 60 years, again, in "realpolitik".
In this context, how are we Venezuelans left? With a fatuous opposition, without any credibility in the country, in the sway of an international political situation that, however distant it may seem, touches us very closely, Venezuelans must take into account what we have and what we do not have. And part of what we do NOT have is an internationally credible opposition. They are not credible because if they were not, there would not have been that direct US-Maduro contact in the first place.
Therefore, the construction of this new opposition with a new political leadership, in the first place, is an urgent and first order task that we must undertake within the so-called organized civil society and the decent political leadership that we still have left, having as first objective to achieve to establish the necessary channels with the International Community to assert our proposals to leave the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros in the middle of this international crisis, demonstrating to the US that in Venezuela it is not necessary to maintain a tyranny to ensure an America for the Americans, as the Monroe Doctrine once dictated. This is not only possible but absolutely necessary.
Caracas, March 8, 2022
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