If the United States government was intent on choosing an ineffective and damaging response to the crisis in Venezuela, it need only use its foreign policy toward South and Central America during the Cold War as a blueprint. Potentially pre-empting the nascent anti-Maduro, Organization of American States coalition that his trip to the region sought to anneal, Vice President with an all-encompassing sanctions-based prescription to modify the behavior of the Maduro regime. This was likely meant as a more reasonable alternative to President Trump’s suggestion of .

Yet both of these suggestions are unwelcome in a continent afflicted by the memories of excessive intervention by the United States. Maduro’s attempts to impose autocracy have provided the United States with a historic opportunity to pursue a course salutary to Venezuelan society while improving its reputation. It should orient its foreign policy decision with this history in mind.

The situation Venezuela finds itself in today was predictable, attributable to policies pursued by the “Bolivarian” administration of Hugo Chavez. Powered by record oil profits, Venezuela was able to engage in the well below market price; Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, compounded these polices with the nationalization of private business and the creation of cheap government supermarkets.

Unsurprisingly, the collapse in oil prices meant that the goods subsidized so munificently by the Chavez regime could no longer be provided in the same quantity. Corruption, debt and wholesale nationalization continue to prevent Venezuela from responding to the economic crisis. Though a robust political opposition exists, it has been blocked from meaningful reform by a packed with pro-Maduro judges.

Knowing that the mass majority of Venezuelans from an economy for which they hold Maduro responsible, Pence’s threat of broad-based sanctions are both tone deaf and counter-intuitive. A full-scale sanctioning of Venezuela’s oil industry would decimate the already dilapidated economy and send it into shock. This would allow Maduro to shift the blame from his administration to the “imperialist” United States. With an approval rating consistently , it’s hard to see how a policy that causes further suffering would help.

Maduro doesn’t need the United States to be unpopular. A negatively perceived intervention by the US government, however, would boost his popularity by lending credence to his claims of US meddling. For the most applicable reference, a half century, full-scale embargo failed spectacularly to change the behavior of socialist Cuba, a country that Venezuela has attempted to mirror since 1999. While an embargo-reminiscent policy toward Venezuela would be unwelcoming, the mere suggestion of military intervention is a non-starter. Even in instances where the stated goals of the United States were met, the overall effect on the country in question was less than positive.

Old Habits

The invasion of Panama in 1989 to oust Manuel Noriega, , was touted in the immediate aftermath as a success by then President George H.W. Bush. However, the consequences include suing of the for postwar looting, a ranging from the hundreds to the thousands, and a denunciation of the United States by most members of the . Just as the Trump administration does not have the cache with the international community to risk further damage to its reputation, the people of Venezuela cannot risk the chaos that would follow even a “successful” military intervention.

Clandestine support for military opposition to Maduro should be discarded in the same vein. The Venezuelan military was able to easily quash an attempted military revolt by Captain Juan Caguaripano and otherĚý. If the United States were to pursue a strategy of arming and encouraging rebellion against the Maduro regime, it might want to look at several realities. A reservoir of armed, pro-government vigilante groups, known as colectivos, are in place to protect the Maduro government, willing to murder civilians opposing him. Promoting counter-Maduro vigilantism would undoubtedly tear at the seams of Venezuelan society to a point of no return. US Cold War policies supporting in El Salvador, Nicaragua and have left those countries enveloped in a cycle of violence; the attainment of US goals for those countries hasn’t remedied .

So for what result should the United States aim to achieve? The most auspicious outcome, out of the four outlined as likely by the , is quoted as follows: “A split within Maduro’s inner circle, the establishment of a stable and united political opposition lead[ing] to credible elections under a new National Electoral Council (CNE), monitored by the Organization of American States (OAS) and other observers and backed by a Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) with new members selected in accord with the current Constitution.”

Power Grab

So how would the fracturing of Maduro’s inner circle start? At the heart of the Maduro government’s power grab is the creation of its rubber-stamp . This is where direct US action should focus any initial, punitive action as it is the visible symbol of Maduro’s arbitrary power. Sanctions specifically hitting every member of the Constituent Assembly along with those close to Maduro will focus specifically on those that are inherently autocratic. Unlike extensive sanctions that hit the Venezuela’s oil sector (and by that extension its economy writ large), . More importantly, the impact wouldn’t result in added suffering for the Venezuelan populace.

As a prerequisite to ending these sanctions, the US should require the Maduro regime to to allowing direct humanitarian aid to reach the Venezuelan people. Otherwise, Maduro would continue to pay a personal price for entrenching autocracy while being a visible barrier to the flood of necessary supplies. Directly goading OAS member states to involve themselves in the aid effort would strengthen the visibly beneficial US effort. Neighboring Colombia, for instance, has temporary granted legal status to some . Regardless of the outcome, this would have the salutary effect of aligning the Venezuelan populace with the United States.

Venezuela has chronic problems beyond its current crises. However, the United States has an opportunity to push the country in a direction so that the people of Venezuela have a chance to institute the change they have demanded and voted for. Since the foundation for a working government is there, the Trump administration should work with it. It neatly coincides with an “America First” repudiation of nation building from scratch. With the , the policy it chooses should capitalize on this short-term consensus in the event that this chance proves ephemeral. Impacting the region for the better while improving its image will pay dividends. With that said, Cold War foreign policy should remain where suitable: as a blueprint for what not to do in South America.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ěý/

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On July 26, a German court sentenced Sven Lau, a known recruiter of foreign fighters, . One immediate concern following the continued loss of territory formerly controlled by Islamist terrorist organizations like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Nusra Front (now as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or Liberation of the Levant Organization) is that the surviving foreign fighters that poured into the region from Europe will now be returning home. Over 900 people from Germany alone are estimated to have left the country to fight with terrorist and extremist groups, , meaning that Lau’s case will likely be one of many.

Other European countries . Simply jailing extremists in the general prison population, rather than having the salutary effect of containing extremist ideology, has had the obverse outcome. The result of this has been the metastasis of Islamic extremist beliefs to non-extremists. As the European prison systems take in more individuals with a nexus to terrorism, the need to rethink current models of incarceration is paramount.

While the focus on recent Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe has largely been on the correlation between terrorism and immigration, the success of Islamist ideologues proselytizing within the prison systems of various European countries presents a more worrying source of radicalization. In the case of the January 2015 attacks on the magazineĚýCharlie Hebdo and Hypercacher Kosher supermarket in Paris, for instance, two of the perpetrators, ChĂ©rifĚýKouachi and Almedy Coulibaly, were products of the radical Islam pervading France’s notorious Fleury-MĂ©rogisĚýprison: Within its chaotic confines, ChĂ©rifĚýand Almedy came under the sway of the . The father of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the IS ringleader most notorious for his role in planning the November 2015 Paris attacks, said his son, arrested on multiple occasions for robbery, was likely to .

Second and third generation descendants of Muslim migrants who came to Europe in decades past, unfettered by the less purist versions of Islam of their immigrant parents, yet not quite fitting into the Western milieu in which they have grown up, .

The sense of community provided by the Islamists mandates ideological purity and unmitigated devotion as the only prerequisites for acceptance amongst their ranks; the absence of theological grounding to rebut Islamist narratives makes those targeted for recruitment even more vulnerable. A convenient fusion of extreme beliefs and an already demonstrated history of violence allow radical preachers to redirect their new recruits toward extremist ends. Acts of violent jihad can serve a redemptive purpose for those criminals wanting to right the wrongs of their past in light of their newfound conversions.

So, what can be done to remedy this issue moving forward?

Propitiously coinciding with the arrest of extremist ideologue Anjem Chaudhry on charges of supporting IS, the United Kingdom has recently started implementing moves in the right direction by . The Netherlands already has such an approach for its inmates jailed for terrorist offences, of those within these special units makes drawing conclusions as to their effectiveness difficult. Yet this approach remains an attractive option given that it limits the contagion to those already holding extremist views and prevents the spread to those who do not.

Quarantining is a start in the right direction but it is not a perfect solution. One possible consequence is that the co-location of those with a propensity toward violence and extremism could bolster planning networks for attacks upon release from prison. As such, “extremist only” wings need to be monitored carefully specifically to avoid this possibility.

In an by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, some of the following recommendations would serve as valuable accompaniments for those in the general prison population: clamping down on anti-Muslim discrimination so as not to encourage the formation of identity-based gangs for protection, implementing mixed programs for prisoners that combine vocational training with religious re-education, and facilitating non-extremist networks outside prison to combat the tendency to return to extremist environs.

European prisons have served successfully as centers for the inculcation of extremist ideals for too long. With the repeated manufacturing of holy warriors out of simple street thugs, Europe needs new ideas. The influx of those returning from the battlefield after having served the jihadist cause will fill Europe’s prison systems with the most ideologically committed and violent acolytes. While incarceration is required to deal with these returnees and violent domestic extremists, history has shown that it is also a source of the problem. It need not be. With a continued dedication to reforming the system, the use of prisons as terrorism seminaries can be greatly diminished.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ěý/

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