This isn't regime change; it's mob-level extortion [View all]

By Michelle Goldberg / The New York Times

The Trump administration’s abduction of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela doesn’t seem to be a regime change operation.

After all, America is leaving the regime, now headed by Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, in power. As of Monday, all of Venezuela’s ruling officials aside from Maduro appear to have remained in their posts, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who controls the police and was known as one of Maduro’s most fearsome enforcers.

“That’s very odd, historically, to see something like this,” said Javier Corrales, a professor at Amherst College and the author of “Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism.” “To see that you get rid of the leader, but the regime stays in place.”

But for President Donald Trump, the preservation of something close to the status quo makes sense, given that his goal is extortion, not political transformation. Rather than the moralistic imperialism of former President George W. Bush, Trump’s foreign policy is imperialistic gangsterism. As one administration official put it to me, there’s “something refreshing about Trump just saying, ‘Yeah, we are taking the oil.’”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/goldberg-this-isnt-regime-change-its-mob-level-extortion/