Could Venezuela Stumble into War Like Afghanistan?

 

 

 

Could Venezuela Stumble into War Like Afghanistan?

Here Is Why That Outcome Is Not Very Probable

 

By Wahab Raofi

Unlike the tribal and religious landscape that sustained decades of jihad against foreign occupiers in Afghanistan, Venezuela presents a markedly different social and political terrain — one that lacks the same mechanisms for mass religious mobilization against external intervention.

During his campaign, Donald Trump embraced “No More Wars” as a slogan and pledged to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, promising to end what he called the nation’s “forever war.” That was then.

Following the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Trump has once again startled allies and adversaries alike. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Gerald Baker observes that Trump has never been adept at articulating a coherent strategic rationale, and that his idiosyncratic foreign policy style invites maximalist interpretations.

In the wake of events in Venezuela, critics now contend that Trump has violated his own campaign pledge — arguing that by toppling a dictator, he risks replaying the 2001 mistake in Afghanistan, when the removal of the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, metastasized into a two-decade quagmire. The fear is familiar: regime change today, endless war tomorrow.

That analogy, however, is misplaced. Venezuela is not Afghanistan.

Here is why:

Jihad.

 Unlike Venezuela, Afghanistan is a tribally structured society where Islam profoundly shapes social, political and moral life. Foreign intervention has consistently mobilized a prescribed ideological and religious response — jihad framed as collective defense.

This pattern explains why Afghanistan has earned the label “graveyard of empires,” a reputation forged through resistance to the British in the nineteenth century, the Soviet Union in the twentieth, and the United States in the twenty-first.

Crucially, foreign invasion has repeatedly united Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic groups, compelling them to undertake what is widely understood as a sacred duty against a common enemy. As a modern, secular republic, Venezuela lacks such a structure.

Its political crisis has unfolded within the framework of a centralized state and is driven by secular ideologies, elite fragmentation and institutional decay — not by tribal loyalties or religious mobilization.

Safe havens for insurgents enabled them to launch attacks and retreat into rugged terrain that has historically frustrated even the most advanced occupying forces. This physical advantage was compounded by Afghanistan’s regional environment. Surrounded by states often adversarial to U.S. interests — including Iran, China and Russian-aligned Central Asian governments —insurgent groups benefited from cross-border sanctuary, logistical support and strategic depth.

Venezuela presents no such conditions. Although some neighbors have political disagreements with Washington, they do not form a unified group providing insurgents with shelter or ongoing support—a key issue that hindered stabilization in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, the political situations of the two countries are not directly comparable. In Venezuela, despite the removal of its president, the state did not collapse. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assumed power in a manner consistent with constitutional succession.

Key institutions  —  including the military, security forces and public sector  —  have remained functional under the interim government, and there have been no widespread reports of chaos. Additionally, the opposition, led by figures such as María Corina Machado, has not called for mass protests and has largely engaged within the political arena.

In stark contrast, Afghanistan's politics are deeply fractured along religious, regional and ethnic lines. Loyalty often lies with identity groups rather than the state, and as in many failed states, the regime's survival has historically depended on a single leader. Strong national institutions do not exist; therefore, the removal of that leader translates directly into the collapse of the government and, subsequently, total state collapse.

Consequently, any foreign attempt to prop up a regime by keeping an individual in power is ultimately doomed to failure.

Therefore, while Venezuela presents a profound political and humanitarian challenge, it does not represent a potential quagmire on the scale of Afghanistan. The critical difference lies in institutional persistence.

Unlike Afghanistan, where the state evaporated with its leader, Venezuela's core institutions — the military, civil bureaucracy and security forces — continue to function, preventing a total power vacuum and societal collapse. Consequently, the United States would not face the kind of logistical nightmare and security meltdown that defined its final withdrawal from Kabul.

As Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research writed in opinion piece in the New York Times, in choosing to work with existing power structures rather than embark on an open-ended state-building project, the Trump administration has acknowledged a basic reality: Chavismo cannot simply be wished away. Where Mr. Trump has gone wrong is in ignoring the idea that Venezuela needs meaningful democratic reforms to move forward.

 

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