On November 28, Inter-American Dialogue president and CEO Rebecca Bill Chávez gave an interview to BBC News in which she discussed the likelihood of U.S. military operations in Venezuela.

Comments from Chavez:

“There are so many different criminal groups operating in Venezuela. There are the dissident FARC members, the ELN. It is a huge territory, and the institutions in Venezuela are broken after decades of mismanagement. It would be a situation of nation-building. So, as far as unilateral military intervention goes, I don’t think it’s in the U.S.’s national security interests.”

“The negotiation path so far has not led to the sort of results that one would hope. Maduro has used them to stall. One potential outcome of this is to put enough pressure on Maduro that he would come to the table. But for that to happen, it would need to be clear that there is a path for Maduro to leave power. Maduro is an authoritarian leader guilty of mass human rights violations. He is not the legitimate ruler of the country.”

“The Venezuelan military’s assets are old, and its training is weak, but it is a large military, at least on paper. One of the potential goals of the U.S. right now is to prompt military defections because Maduro has been able to maintain military loyalty. In the past—in 2019, for example—there was hope that more officers would defect, but there were no meaningful defections, period.”

“Many of us who have followed Latin America for years have hoped for more U.S. attention to the region. What concerns me is the lack of an affirmative agenda in the region.”

“When discussing the strikes on the vessels and the legal uncertainty surrounding them, I also believe this serves as a signal to Mexico and to Colombia. It suggests that the U.S. may be serious about the possibility of military incursions into those territories, especially Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum has said we will not accept any sort of U.S. military intervention in the country. It would do serious damage to the bilateral relationship.”