There are good reasons to celebrate the downfall of the tyrant Nicolás Maduro, as so many Venezuelan exiles did when they heard the news Saturday morning. Not among those reasons: an America that seizes Venezuela’s oil assets while keeping what’s left of Maduro’s odious regime in place.

That seems to be President Donald Trump’s rationale, but who knows? He says one thing; his secretary of state says another.

Maybe it’s incoherence: Trump didn’t really know what he wanted in his face-off with Maduro, other than not to be seen to lose it. Or maybe it’s misdirection: MAGA isn’t keen on the words “regime change,” so Trump is talking up the mercenary angle of his policy while trying to see if he can engage or strong-arm Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim leader, into steering the country toward an orderly transition of power via new — and, hopefully this time, fair — elections.

What’s certain is that it’s fantasy.

Fantasy, first, because Venezuela’s crude oil reserves, thought to be the world’s largest, come with a badly degraded energy infrastructure that would require billions of dollars in upfront investment for a questionable payoff amid a global oil glut. Simply put, the world doesn’t particularly need Venezuelan oil, and Venezuelans would be better off in the long term trying to free themselves from their economy’s addiction to oil revenues.

Fantasy, second, because the leading members of the Venezuelan regime wasted no time after Maduro’s capture making it clear that they had no intention of taking direction from Mar-a-Lago. Rodríguez claimed Maduro’s capture had “Zionist undertones,” suggesting that her grip on reality may not be what the administration hopes. Diosdado Cabello, the powerful interior minister, is urging resistance and mobilizing the colectivos, or paramilitaries, to suppress potential revolt.

Fantasy, finally, because it’s politically untenable for Trump to depose Maduro without also ending the regime that sustained him. It would lose Trump the support of the Venezuelans who now cheer him. And it would lose the backing of U.S. conservatives (and even a few liberals) who can see the logic of replacing Maduro — but not with another Maduro.

How Does Trump Provide Venezuela With a Legitimate Government?

Whether failing to remove the regime is a possibly disastrous oversight or part of a yet-to-be-revealed plan, the administration will have to figure out how to get rid of it for good in favor of a legitimate, stable and democratically elected government. And it will have to offer Americans, and the rest of the world, a convincing explanation for why it did so.

How?

The administration seems terrified of causing Iraq-style chaos in Venezuela, requiring a heavy U.S. military presence to police, which seems to be the argument for leaving the regime in place for now. Venezuela is not Iraq, and it already has a democratically elected president (formally recognized as such by the Biden administration) in the person of Edmundo González, who won about two-thirds of the vote in 2024.

But the administration is right to worry that the regime retains a critical mass of supporters who could try to make the country ungovernable if they were promptly swept from power. They need to be given plausible choices.

For top-level hard-liners like Cabello and the defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, the choice should be the one previously offered to Maduro: Club Med or Club Fed — exile in Turkey or turkey sandwiches in a New York prison. Maybe they’ll choose more wisely than their former boss.

For more pliable elements of the regime, a different choice: Go to free and fair elections, accept the inevitable defeat and become just another political party or else be banned from politics for life. For military officers and paramilitary leaders, accept an amnesty in exchange for a pledge of loyalty to the next government. Alternatively, face prosecution and, if indictable, extradition to the United States.

All this requires if not an immediate election, then the guarantee of one sooner rather than later. On Monday, Trump said there was “no way” an election could be held in the next month. OK, how about within six months? There needs to be a clear road map for that “judicious” transfer of power Trump spoke of when he announced Maduro’s capture.

Venezuela Is Different Than Ukraine and Taiwan

Above all, there needs to be legitimacy. Trump’s capture of Maduro is being criticized as an invitation to Russia and China to behave similarly. This ought to be absurd: There is all the moral difference in the world between capturing an indicted dictator like Maduro and seeking to overthrow and conquer elected governments in Ukraine and Taiwan. And with due respect to international law, it cannot become a shield behind which despots everywhere can do as they please to their own people.

Maduro’s capture was met with jubilation by exiled Venezuelans because for 25 years they and their families have had to endure one of the cruelest regimes anywhere and do so with precious little attention or sympathy from self-described progressives who otherwise claim to champion human rights and democracy. Trump now has a chance to prove he can be a better friend to freedom than his critics, assuming he doesn’t squander the moment, as he’s so wont to do.

It will take an election — free, fair, and fairly soon.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Bret Stephens/Vincent Alban

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