What comes next? America’s military might confronts a really bad guy and won. America has proven over and over that we are really good at military action, and we have proven that we are not so good at what comes next.
Well, Americans were good at figuring out what came next after fighting and winning the Revolutionary War. America was blessed with geniuses, and the geniuses were on the ground. We call them the Founding Fathers. They established a governing framework, our Constitution, and the General who led the revolutionary troops proved to be good at what came next, governance. Real good.
And George Washington did his best to avoid schismatic politics. And mostly his colleagues, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams and others worked with him, not against him. There were disputes to be sure, but an overarching vision tended to force a high degree of collaboration. But, as we have been reminded in recent years by the Broadway colossus Hamilton, humans will be humans—as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr faced off with guns.
So what do we do in Venezuela? Who are the Venezuela patriots? Which ones are wise, not just smart? Are there generals who are also plausible civilian leaders? And who does the picking? Elections I suspect are months if not years away. Should we look back to the last election won by Edmundo Gonzalez after Maria Machado was disqualified?
We, the people, will, of course, argue about whether America should have gone in. But I suspect few welcomed President Trump’s dismissive comments about Ms. Machado. Recall his statement when asked about the Nobel Prize winner Machado’s potential: “doesn’t have the support” and “doesn’t have the respect”. Recall: her electoral strength caused the Maduro gang to disqualify her from the ballot, and she went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and took a harrowing land, sea, and air trip to Oslo, Norway.
American authoritarian tendencies often leave us with a puzzle. Picture puzzles are hard to put together—I watch my wife do so with admiration. Venezuela is not America, except it’s quite big and complex. It bears no relationship to Iowa, North Carolina, or Maryland. And we should not forget that millions who might be best at building a new Venezuela decamped after the ruinous dictatorships of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
I worked for President George H.W. Bush and observed with interest his son, George W Bush, for eight years. When the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, President George HW Bush assembled an international counterforce and threw the Iraqis out. He then brought our troops home.
George W Bush, after 9/11, invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq and stayed to “run” both. To state the obvious, America and the two Middle Eastern countries did not work well together and in 2020 we suffered a terrible humiliation as we left Afghanistan on the run.
President Trump said in his Saturday news conference we are going to “run Venezuela” as he looked back at his Secretaries of Defense and State and his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. President, this is not the way to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
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