The Cuban Angle to the Venezuela Raid

Perhaps the most revealing detail about Nicolás Maduro’s kidnapping may not be the ordnance that recently rocked Caracas but rather the bodies left in its wake. Reports suggest that multiple Cubans—including the dictator’s personal bodyguards—were among the approximately 40 killed during the operation. The detail speaks volumes not only of the relationship between the Venezuelan and Cuban regimes but also of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s bottom line in Venezuela. While it may still prove insufficient for the secretary that Maduro’s regime survives his capture, it’s possible that Rubio is willing to compromise by letting Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez take control, provided she redirects Venezuelan oil tankers away from Havana’s ports.

The secretary from Miami has spent his entire political career promoting regime change abroad, a role that has served him well electorally among Florida’s neoconservative Latinos. Now, as one of the most powerful secretaries of state since Henry Kissinger, Rubio has secured a significant but possibly incomplete victory against socialist Cuba and Venezuela.

Since the early 2000s, Cuba has provided the Venezuelan regime with vital support, helping consolidate the Bolivarian Revolution’s surveillance state and coup-proofing mechanisms. Shadowy Cuban advisors are alleged to run much of the Venezuelan government, having the final say on decisive actions. 

Assuming Trump’s threats of additional strikes and “running” Venezuela are bluster, the White House’s apparent favor towards acting president Delcy Rodríguez would enable continuity with the existing regime. Considering the president’s stated penchant for oil plunder, the regime might survive if it hands over Venezuelan oil and breaks ranks with Havana. To be sure, it’s unclear whether this is even possible, given the profound symbiosis between both regimes.

From the perspective of neoconservative doctrine, suffering in Cuba will eventually deliver regime change. Nevermind the more than 60 years of U.S. sanctions that have yet to achieve that outcome. Cuba currently faces its most severe economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Amid routine blackouts, the country’s electrical grid—dependent on aging infrastructure and Venezuelan fuel deliveries–hovers on the edge of total collapse. 

The desperation has triggered the largest exodus in Cuban history, with as much as a quarter of the population leaving the island since the pandemic. Cutting off Venezuelan oil, the theory goes, will finally topple the regime. Yet considering that Fidel Castro survived the Special Period of the 1990s—without support from Moscow or Caracas—it’s unclear further suffering will lead to regime collapse.

Whatever its other failings, moreover, Cuba maintains one of the hemisphere’s strictest policies against drug trafficking. The Cuban government actively cooperates with the U.S. Coast Guard in interdiction efforts, making the same pretext of a prospective Cuban intervention even flimsier than the current one in Venezuela. 

The singular dichotomy of anti-communist virtue signalling in Miami is especially ironic considering that multiple Miami Neocons–such as former congressman and Rubio’s college roommate David Rivera–have been found laundering money and lobbying on behalf of Maduro. Remarkably, texts between Rivera and Rubio from 2017 suggest that the secretary once advised a first-term Trump in favor of negotiating with Venezuela. 

It remains to be seen whether the White House will take an offramp in Venezuela. The likely alternative is another forever war, this time in South America.

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