From Venezuela to Iran: a comparative anatomy of two key interventions

in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez prime y Nicolás Maduro They then transformed the state into a corrupt instrument of political survival, supported by institutional capture, military co-optation and selective repression.

In Iran, the theocracy consolidated a model where absolute religious power, violent subjugation of the population (above all women), security apparatus and economy were integrated under the protection of the supreme leader and the Revolutionary Guards.

Impromptu statements? Absolutely. Power management systems designed to last.

However, the current situation makes a decisive difference.

Iran faces a direct external military presence and believes that Venezuela has never experienced this, nor was there any concern about the episode of the capture and removal of Maduro in the last 3 years.

This giant deployed in the Middle East region in coordination with Israel and with the tacit support of Saudi Arabia is responding to the above-mentioned fear that Tehran will be weeks away from consolidating its operational nuclear capacity. The strategic dimension of Iran’s nuclear program is turning the crisis into a global security issue.

Venezuela, benefiting from its authoritarian shift and its humanitarian collapse, will never cross this geopolitical red line.

This context also explains the behavior of the great powers. Russia and China have opted for calculated silence compared to Iran, avoid frontal implications that threaten your interests in the long run.

In the Venezuelan case, in turn, they fell away from regime stability from the start as a strategic inversion sustained over time. There is no external military intervention here, but an extension the status quo authoritarian low diplomatic and financial cover.

There is also an operative link that connects the two scenarios: the convergence of transnational authoritarian alliances.

The Cuban regime has abandoned a vital role in supporting Chavismo, providing intelligence advice, social control and building security services. This has facilitated cooperation with Iran and the penetration of Hezbollah’s armed forces into Latin America over the years.

Tehran used this platform to expand its influence in the hemisphere; Caracas now has strategic and technological support.

Venezuelan oil and Iranian logistics have solidified a dimension that goes beyond bilateralism and reveals a community of interests based on opposition to the international liberal order.

In both Venezuela and Iran, oil revenues were transformed into a tool of political dominationwhich does not sustain financial development, without loyalty: franchised military elites, clientelistic kings and structural corruption.

Over the decades, sectors of international radical society have justified both models and benefited from them in the name of anti-imperialism. The result is the same: violent societies and an obscene concentration of violence in the hands of the people who conquered the state.

Where the comparison is most uncomfortable is in the intensity of the terror.

Venezuela maintains political policies, documented torture practices, and an instrumental justice system. Iran adds an exemplary dimension of public violence: executions, capital punishment, institutionalized moral repression.

The message is not only to punish the dissident, but to discipline the whole society.

No wonder we observe the same human phenomenon in both countries when power is unstable. So the careful úbilo de quienes is grieta. People often get it wrong when they identify a mud disaster, what usually fails is the international community at the time of monitoring this breakdown.

The European Union oscillates between symbolic sanctions and cautious dialogue, without in either case formulating a single strategy to support the transition to democracy.

In Iran, the emphasis is on de-escalation and respect for the international derecho, while avoiding automatic rapprochement with Washington.

In Venezuela, over the years of diplomatic presence, gradual flexibilization with the hope of encouraging a political opening that has not yet fully materialized.

The Spanish government is the epitome of equidistance. Just as he tepidly condemned the repression in both countries, our president defended the (probably foreign) diplomatic route and condemned the intervention of the EEUU, repeating the international derecho, whose compliment was not once confirmed to the broken Venezuelans and Iranians, prosecuted, imprisoned, tortured or outright executed.

Anyone who calls it prudence or being “on the right side of history”. It can also be interpreted as a strategic inadequacy or the principle of self-interest flotation against regimes that naturally do not allow for ambiguous extensions.

Resistance to exile embodies a democratic alternative in both cases.

in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado He announced that he would return in the next few weeks to begin a transition that would introduce change and give citizens effective sovereignty.

In the Iranian case, Maryam Rajavi he called for an interim government to “hand over sovereignty to the Iranian people” and create a democratic republic compromised of a non-nuclear and WMD-free country, in peace and cooperation with the region.

Two female leaders, two different contexts, but the same ambition convert the break of the criminal regime into a democratic structure.

Between Caracas and Tehran, the same question is formulated in the last instance: how much the regime can hold on when the society collapses, but the power apparatus does not break the cohesion.

The reaction does not depend only on the people or their opposition. It also depends on the strategic clarity of the people, outside the tenth defender of freedom and democracy.