How to Navigate Venezuela’s Murky Moral Waters

For those who think about politics in terms of ideology and rigid categories, the extraordinary events in Venezuela pose an uncomfortable question: what is the morally correct position to take in a drama this complex?

Some celebrate Nicolás Maduro’s removal simply because he was a brutal dictator. They’re largely indifferent to the violation of international law that the US committed to seize him (this is the majority view among Venezuelans). Others, mostly focused on US politics, couldn’t care less about Maduro but recoil at President Donald Trump’s deployment of military forces in South America on dubious grounds, without congressional approval and with the familiar whiff of yet another nation-building experiment. Radical leftists oppose the intervention on principle and, not coincidentally, mourn the disappearance of Maduro’s absurd socialist proclamations (these die-hard anti-imperialists seem to have multiplied in the Trump era). Finally, a more cynical camp marvels at the stark US display of power while feeling no obligation to clean up the mess Venezuela has become.