El Kenedi on today’s Senate hearing:

Secretary Rubio will speak to the Senate today about Venezuela. It’s the closest thing the Venezuelan people have to accountability from their new proxy governors. Rubio is proverbially described as Venezuela’s viceroy, the colonial era representative of the Spanish crown to its overseas outposts. His mandatory appearances before Congress are among the few things that distinguish him from an actual viceroy.

These hearings are the few instances in which the administration can be compelled to explain what it’s doing in Venezuela. But Rubio ultimately reports only to the American people. Even that has been limited, as questions continue to pile up about the administration’s short-term strategy and its long-term goals. The debate so far has hinged on whether the administration had the legal authority to extract Maduro without congressional approval and if it can continue to sink suspected drug boats without legislative authorization.   These discussions hinge on America itself. Congressional hearings are a proving ground for debates about American policies as they affect American citizens.

They give American citizens a way to exert accountability over the administration. But US remote governance of Venezuela makes it a protagonist in that country’s affairs. These accountability mechanisms leave Venezuela as little more than the setting for tangential disputes. It’s something I describe as the Out of Africa effect: a drama playing out within a settler family to the backdrop of a country that has nothing to do with the plot. Venezuela has no agency in Rubio’s decisions.

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