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by Gordon G. Chang • February 8,
2019 at 5:00 am
- The partnership of
Beijing and Moscow is certainly up to no good. As an initial
matter, the duo, powers from the other side of the world, are
in Venezuela to take on the United States, not help it.
- It is doubtful, as
Matt Ferchen of the Leiden Asia Center in the Netherlands
suggests, that Beijing can help another society transition to
democracy. The same, of course, can be said about Vladimir
Putin's Russia. After China and Russia worked to turn
Venezuela into "the Syria of the Western Hemisphere,"
they are not about to democratize it.
- An outreach from
Washington "would legitimize the concept that Russia and
China have a constructive role to play in Western Hemisphere
security... the U.S. has everything to lose from inviting
China and Russia to the table, and no realistic prospect of
gains." — Robert Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College,
to Gatestone.
- China and Russia
make no global problem better. The only sensible approach,
therefore, is to remove them from our hemisphere, and the
place to begin to do that is Venezuela.
Juan
Gerardo Guaidó Márquez appears to be the legitimate president of
Venezuela, and his claim to the presidency has been recognized by
the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and a slew of European
countries. Pictured: Guaidó (center, waving) on February 2, 2019 in
Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo by Marco Bello/Getty Images)
"What are our national security interests in
Venezuela?" Adam Smith, the Washington Democrat who chairs the
House Armed Services Committee, asked Erin Burnett on January 29
during her CNN primetime show. "The idea that we're going to
go in and do battle in Venezuela over who should be running that
country, I don't see a single U.S. national security argument for
doing that."
Not a single interest, Chairman Smith? In December,
two Russian Tu-160 Blackjacks landed near Caracas. The Mach 2,
nuclear-capable bombers can launch cruise missiles with a range of
3,410 miles, putting the U.S. homeland at risk from the airspace
over Venezuela. The Blackjack bombers also buzzed America's West
Coast as they left the region last month.
Representative Smith charged President Trump with
making Venezuela policy "on whims and fantasies and no reality
behind it."
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