Former US Ambassador to Venezuela reacts to U.S. operation to seize Nicolas Maduro : NPR

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Today we hear reactions from Washington in Caracas and beyond to the overnight US operation in Venezuela to capture Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Now let’s see the diplomatic perspective of a former US ambassador to Venezuela. James Story served in this role from 2018 to 2023, as President Trump – during President Trump’s first term as well as under President Biden. Ambassador Story, thank you for being here.

JAMES STORY: Thank you very much for having me today.

KELLY: So to recap the last 24 hours, we conducted a massive operation in the wee hours of the night to arrest the president of Venezuela and bring him to New York to stand trial. Good idea?

STORY: Well, I mean, at the end of the day, what we had in Venezuela, we asked the opposition to do a lot, the international community. They protested. They negotiated. They ran and won the election. And this man stayed in power because he led a criminal organization. The tactical success of what happened early this morning is one thing. The long-term strategic implications are completely different.

KELLY: And let’s leave it at that, the long-term strategic implications, I mean, I’m just trying to imagine what next week will look like in Venezuela. The million dollar question seems to be: How is this going to happen, how is this going to actually work for the United States to rule Venezuela?

STORY: Well, it’s certainly not regime change if you only removed Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, but you left all these other people who are sanctioned and who have committed crimes against humanity, who are definitely very bad actors. They stay behind. And these are the people who are responsible for the kidnapping and torture of American citizens, as well as any kind of politically motivated domestic terrorism, if you want to call it that, that happened inside Venezuela and led to the departure of 9 million people. So in this scenario, we’re going to work with them in one way or another for the United States to somehow provide a level of stability in the country to run a government so that the oil industry can take off. I didn’t understand it.

KELLY: What’s the best-case scenario for what this looks like?

STORY: I mean, the best-case scenario is that somehow – if this is the president’s approach, the best-case scenario is that this happened somehow – it trickles down in a surprising way to a stable transition period. But that amounts to putting hope as a guideline, and hope is not a strategy. And what’s really unfortunate is that we forget the results of an election that took place last year where someone won. Edmundo Gonzalez won the election. Maria Corina Machado is the leader of the opposition. And the president completely rejected that today, which surprised me a lot.

KELLY: He called Machado a very nice woman but said she didn’t have the respect. Let me explain how this fits into what we’re trying to understand as Trump’s overall foreign policy. For example, how does this fit into Trump’s America First doctrine?

STORY: Well, if you read the national security strategy, it’s clear that the president has turned his attention to the Western Hemisphere. And as someone who spent almost 30 years of his diplomatic career in the Western Hemisphere, I think it’s right to focus on the Western Hemisphere in the right way, because everything that happens in Latin America has an impact on the United States.

What makes me nervous is the idea that somehow now – well, Europe has to deal with Russia. It is up to you to manage the situation in Ukraine. And if I were Taiwan or even South Korea, I would now wonder to what extent will the security guarantees actually hold?

KELLY: Yeah. Republican and Democratic members of Congress – we just had one on the agenda raising questions about why it would be OK for the United States to invade another country and capture that country’s leader, but not for, say, Vladimir Putin to do the same to President Zelensky of Ukraine. I guess the…

STORY: Yeah.

KELLY: …The broader question is: If you’re sitting today in Moscow, in Beijing, what are you thinking about right now?

STORY: Well, I think if you’re sitting in Beijing, you’re thinking, well, as soon as I get a chance to go out to Taiwan, I think I’m off the gloves and I’m going to do it. If you’re in Russia, they haven’t really changed their point of view. I mean, they’ve been doing this stuff before. I think it’s important for us to…

KELLY: Even Putin didn’t go to kyiv and kidnap Zelensky and bring him to Moscow to stand trial.

STORY: Well, he certainly tried. He definitely tried. If he had succeeded at the very beginning of the war, with great pride and not understanding the martial spirit of Ukraine, they thought they would march directly to kyiv, but they did not succeed. What stopped them was their inability to do it, not the fact that they wanted to do it.

KELLY: And I guess I’m asking you this as a diplomat, because once you cross a line, what are the rules that govern the world order?

STORY: Well, I mean, that’s a great question. I mean, the fact is that we live in a golden age because of the rules-based order that was established at the end of World War II. And this is currently under direct attack from the administration, to tell it like it is. There’s a reason I’m a former diplomat, not a current diplomat, I suppose.

KELLY: I was going to ask if you were interested now that there might be a vacancy in Caracas.

STORY: Well, I’m sure there’s a long line of people there – obviously there’s not, actually. Secretary Rubio will do it, according to what the president said earlier, but… and Pete Hegseth. But the fact is that international institutions exist and they have created untold economic prosperity around the world and ended wars. Frankly, we live in wonderful times. It seems like it’s all bad news, but that’s not the case. People are living longer and healthier, with more access to calories and medications. All this is now subject to debate.

KELLY: It’s James Story. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023. Ambassador story, thank you.

STORY: Thanks for inviting me.

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