Empanadas are Latin American dough filled pastries with many different flavored meats and vegetables. A perfect metaphor for how Iran, Russia — and China, with their pursuit and support of dictatorial socialist regimes, like the Maduro socialist dictatorship in Venezuela, are being devoured by Venezuelans wanting true democracy.
The Syrian-Russia-Iran brutal slaughter of more than half a million people, millions of refugees, destruction of the country and economy, in order to keep the Assad regime in power, is not a workable, viable or acceptable solution for Venezuela.
Iran, Russia and China stand to each lose billions of dollars of loans, investments, relationships, businesses — legal and illegal — and a failed socialist non-democratic government ally in favor of a democratic one supported by America and all democracies around the world — unless Madura and Co. decide to go along with the Russia-Iran-China Syria model to keep Maduro in power. A red line America and other Latin America countries, except Cuba, will not tolerate.
China and Russia can take the economic hit, but the same can’t be said for Iran and its support of the Maduro government, directly and indirectly through Hezbollah. Coupled with the economic and political crisis the Iranian Ayatollahs are facing at home, in Gaza and Lebanon with their proxies Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, because of U.S. sanctions that have significantly curtailed Iran’s cash flow, the question of when and how regime change will take place in Iran has again become a legitimate question.
With the regime changes that have taken place in Sudan and Algeria, two Muslim countries with strong dictatorships, the discussion about regime change in Iran is a relevant and timely one. What type of regime will replace the Ayatollahs?
America should not repeat its mistakes of the past by trying to impose any regime. Not in Iran. And not in Venezuela.
Let democracy, Iranian and Latino style, take their natural paths with all the bumps in the road along the way. Local flavored empanadas are the best. They already are flavored with Americana.