Venezuela Seems to Be Going… Well?

Missy Ryan: “By the metrics the president cares about most—accessing oil and avoiding a protracted, politically damaging conflagration—Trump’s Venezuelan adventure is working…”

“Today, Venezuela remains ruled by unelected leaders—different ones, proceeding cautiously for now, but cut from the same authoritarian cloth. Trump-administration officials told me that they are steering Venezuela toward elections by late 2027 and slowly introducing potentially combustible factors, such as the return of the opposition leader María Corina Machado. Whether their bet that a more gradual transition can deliver democracy and avoid the pitfalls that wholesale political change brought in Iraq, Libya, and Egypt remains to be seen.”