STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Let's pick up the discussion right there with a diplomat who has long experience in Latin America. Kevin Whitaker, who was a senior official at the U.S. embassy in Caracas years ago and is also a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia. Ambassador, welcome.
KEVIN WHITAKER: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Why leave the current government in place if you're going to go to the trouble of arresting the president?
WHITAKER: You know, it's a good question. I was quite surprised that María Corina Machado was so disqualified by President Trump. But two reasons occur to me. One, obviously, in Iraq, we dissolved the government and the armed forces, and chaos ensued. And so perhaps what they're thinking here is it's better to have those forces, however illegitimate, in power, so as to avoid that chaotic outcome. Secondly, if Edmundo González, the president who was elected last year, were simply to be installed after U.S. military intervention, that might have the tendency of disqualifying him as a leader going forward.
INSKEEP: Oh, really interesting. Like, he could not lead his people if he was seen as arriving on U.S. bayonets, so to speak. So instead, they leave the government in place. And we referred to this earlier as an old-style colonial model. I was thinking about this over the weekend. This is something that used to happen in the 1800s. You leave some local potentate in charge. They do whatever they want locally. You give them orders from time to time. Does this seem like a workable approach in the 21st century?
WHITAKER: I think it's highly unlikely that it'll be workable, but we are in exceptional times. I actually would go back farther, though. In the Roman Empire, they talked about having the same friends and enemies of countries that they conquered. And that's basically what Secretary Rubio laid out yesterday and layered on top of that our insistence that the United States control the petroleum resource.
INSKEEP: What does that mean, having the same friends and enemies? I don't get it.
WHITAKER: So Venezuela has relations with Iran, with Hezbollah, with Russia and China. And Secretary Rubio indicated in his interviews yesterday that all of those relationships need to end.
INSKEEP: Oh, I get it. So Venezuela will need to adjust its foreign policy to conform with the United States. That's very interesting. Now, as you know very well, Ambassador, the president has widened his focus well beyond Venezuela. He's thinking about the whole Western Hemisphere, seems way more willing to take military action within this hemisphere. And here's the president referring to this over the weekend on Air Force One.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This isn't a country that's on the other side of the world. This isn't a country, like, where you have to travel 24 hours in an airplane. This is Venezuela. It's in our area. The Donroe Doctrine.
INSKEEP: Playing off the Monroe Doctrine there, the idea that Europeans should stay out of Western Hemisphere affairs. It's come to me the United States dominates the hemisphere, and Trump wants to do that more and more directly. How would you evaluate that policy change?
WHITAKER: It's consistent with what they laid out in their new national security strategy, what the administration laid out. And again, that idea would be no external actors in the hemisphere and these resources are our resources. They belong to the United States as a priority matter.
INSKEEP: What did you think about when you heard the president go on to say that he believes that the President of Colombia, quote, "has cocaine mills and cocaine factories" - a description of the president of Colombia, where you once served - and said he's not going to be doing that very long. What did you think about when you heard that?
WHITAKER: Look, you know, there's no question about that Colombia is the main producer of cocaine in the world. It is not the case that the Colombian government is complicit in that as a matter of state policy, as was the case in Venezuela. Moreover, Venezuela was ruled by a dictator. The Venezuelan armed forces were corrupted. And none of those conditions apply in Colombia. Whatever you think of Petro, he was elected democratically. And the Colombian armed forces are doing their best to address the problems created by international criminality.
INSKEEP: Let me just ask, if you were still a U.S. diplomat, if you were part of this policy and enacting it, what would worry you? What would keep you up at night in the days ahead?
WHITAKER: You know, there's more than a few things. One would be widespread unrest inside of Venezuela, which could happen. And you're talking about, as I said, a corrupted armed forces. And what reaction would they take at that point? Also, the western half of Venezuela is dominated by illegal armed groups of Colombian origin. What those kinds of groups crave is stability. And if they detect that this situation will become unstable, their reactions will probably be violent. That's the way they respond to everything.
INSKEEP: Oh, meaning that even the current government that's being left in place does not fully control the country?
WHITAKER: Absolutely not. No, there's no control of the current government in western Venezuela.
INSKEEP: Ambassador, thanks so much for your insights. Really appreciate it.
WHITAKER: My pleasure. Thank you.
INSKEEP: Kevin Whitaker is a former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Caracas, former U.S. ambassador to Colombia and now with the nonpartisan think tank the Atlantic Council. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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