Lefties and liberals want Narendra Modi to condemn Don Trump’s invasion of Venezuela. All invasions are bad; innocents get shot. But if we condemn one, shouldn’t we condemn all?
When Leonid Brezhnev’s tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia, we looked the other way. When the Russian bear rolled down into Afghanistan, Indira accused Andrei Gromyko, without anyone hearing, of “bringing the cold war to our doorsteps”. We didn’t condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. We kept quiet when Benjamin Netanyahu invaded Gaza. There are more.
Military-pacted, non-aligned, neutral or simply spineless, every ruler acts in his country’s supreme self interest when confronted with global crises. So it was with Nehru and Indira; so it is with Modi.
The same with Trump. The philanderer-president may be accused of all the seven cardinal sins or more, but concede one virtue to him—he practises what he preaches.
Look at his Venezuelan adventure. He had told the whole world and its elder brothers—Putin, Xi, Starmer, Macron, Merz &c—that he wouldn’t let any carpetbagger from the east ride into the American continent and take control of its vast assets. This “Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine”, proclaimed late November, had warned he would “deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets in our hemisphere”.
This column had discussed the Monroe doctrine then. Annoyed with the European powers fighting their colonial wars on the American continent, US president James Monroe told them in 1823 to keep off the New World; in return the US wouldn’t poke its nose in European affairs.
Venezuela is the first place where Trump is practising the doctrine. He may have given several reasons for ousting Maduro—he was a tyrant, a drug lord or even a mad dog. But the real sin of Maduro in Trump’s eyes was that he had stepped out of the Monroe rekha—he was giving control of Venezuela’s oil fields, the largest in the world, to non-hemispheric actor China—and he was arming himself with Chinese weapons. Not in my backyard, decided Trump. Now, among the first things Trump said after ousting and arresting Maduro is that he would control the oil fields.
The libs are cheesed off with Trump also for letting Maduro’s 2-I-C Delcy Rodriguez, perhaps a partner in his crimes, take command, and not the Nobel-winning liberal icon Machado. I would say, for the first time, we saw Trump following the norms of democracy at least in letter. Venezuelans had elected Maduro and Rodriguez to rule them, and sent Machado to lead the opposition. Now when there’s a vacancy at the top, it’s the number two among the elected rulers who should fill the post, and not the one who had lost the polls.
How would the invasion impact the world? As lawyers say, here the Monroe doctrine ought to be ‘read with’ the Trump corollary. In return for keeping their messy fingers out of the American pie, Monroe had also promised to keep off Europe’s nasty post-Napoleonic politics dictated by Prince Metternichs and Lord Castlereaghs.
Trump has been saying much the same ever since he came to power the second time, seeking to MAGA by minding its own business and stop intervening or bankrolling other people’s wars. So, don’t be surprised if he lets Putin have his way in Ukraine or looks the other way if China arm-twists Taiwan.
Now, what about us? Well, haven’t we always found our own ways and pacts of convenience?
prasannan@theweek.in