From Caracas to Tehran: The Same Failed Playbook

Autocrats start wars for no better reason than consolidating their power at home, making follow-up incoherent. Donald Trump is no exception. In Venezuela, the unresolved ledger is substantial: no transition framework, no election timeline, a fragmented opposition, a consolidating regime, hundreds still imprisoned, and an extractive oil architecture with no democratic conditionality.

By mid-March, U.S. military strikes against Iran dominated every headline, every cable news crawl, and every interagency meeting in Washington. Lost in the coverage: Venezuela. Eighty-two days after the United States launched a dramatic unilateral intervention there, the regime is consolidating, the opposition is fracturing and adrift, the promised democratic transition is nowhere in the conversation, and Washington is not paying attention. Emboldened by his “success” in Venezuela, Trump is now attempting to apply the same template to Iran. Will it “succeed” any better?

The January 3 capture of Nicolás Maduro was swift, surgical, and singular. No regional coalition supported it. UN Security Council condemnation was silenced only by a U.S. veto. Three months on, the United States is managing Venezuela policy in a diplomatic vacuum of its own making. When coercive diplomacy produces outcomes requiring sustained engagement—and Venezuela does—isolation is not a strategy. It is a liability. The Hemisphere is watching a United States that acts alone, accepts no counsel, and pays no penalty for the precedent it sets. In the long run, that erodes the coalition-building capacity every serious foreign policy challenge demands.

With its hands deep in Venezuela’s day-to-day operations, the United States is effectively the midwife for Chavismo’s third incarnation. Venezuelans, preferring to deal with the owner of the circus, not the clowns, to echo a common Venezuelan saying, are taking note that Washington is part of the problem, forestalling a political transition. A credible poll found 91 percent of Venezuelans want elections and want the results respected.

Maduro is gone. Chavismo is not. Delcy Rodríguez has proven to be something the January 3 architects may not have anticipated: a capable political survivor. Venezuelan analysts describe what is unfolding as the regime’s third transformation, from Bolivarian revolutionary fervor through narco-state consolidation to pragmatic authoritarianism. While Venezuela was still celebrating its World Baseball Classic victory, Rodríguez reshuffled her cabinet, installing loyalists throughout, including Gustavo González López as Minister of Defense, one of the first Venezuelans personally sanctioned by the United States for human rights abuses, including torture, during his tenure heading SEBIN, Venezuela’s civilian intelligence service. This is not a post-Chavista government reaching for technocratic legitimacy. It is the same structure, reorganized for the next chapter.

The Trump administration, which has never made democratic transition a condition of its Venezuela dealings, is not pressing anyone to resolve the issue of the role of the opposition. María Corina Machado addressed CERAWeek on March 25, sandwiched between Energy Secretary Wright and Interior Secretary Burgum, on a panel titled “The Future of Venezuela.” This high-profile visibility is not the same as political leverage inside the country. Machado’s absence has created a vacuum: some figures are drifting toward accommodation with the Rodríguez government, others are expanding their own profiles. Edmundo González Urrutia—the man millions voted for as president—has been effectively marginalized in international discourse. Venezuela’s main opposition coalition, the United Democratic Platform (PUD), is showing strains.

Meanwhile, the oil-extraction architecture built after January 3 continues to expand, untethered from any democratic conditionality. Through a license from the US Treasury, there is a further enforcement delay on bondholder claims against CITGO to May 5, another accommodation to keep the machinery running. The cascade of general licenses remains intact. What has not expanded, by a single syllable, is any U.S. insistence on an election timeline. Rodríguez’s brother Jorge said in February, “There will not be an election in this immediate period.” That stands unrebutted by Washington. The administration’s metric remains what it was on day one: barrels, not ballots.

Thirty-two years in the Foreign Service—including three tours in Venezuela, until I was declared persona non grata and expelled on 48 hours’ notice—taught me that the United States is most effective in its own hemisphere when it stays engaged, builds coalitions, and insists on democratic standards as a condition of partnership, not an aspiration for some future date. The January 3 operation replaced one set of problems with a more complex set. The opposition is weaker. The regime is adapting. Thirty million Venezuelans are still waiting. And Washington is watching Tehran. We have been here before.

Brian Naranjo is an independent strategic consultant and former Senior Foreign Service Officer with over thirty years of experience serving primarily in the Western Hemisphere and tours as the senior political officer in Panama, Canada, and Mexico. At State, Brian directed the Political and Policy Coordination Office for the Western Hemisphere and the UN Political Affairs Office. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 400 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions..