Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó offers 'strongest' remarks on possible U.S. military intervention to date

Juan Guaidó
(Image credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó opened up about errors he made last week when he tried to wrest control of the government from President Nicolás Maduro.

Guaidó, in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, suggested he thought he was going to procure support from a larger swath of Venezuela's military forces, which would then lead to Maduro stepping down without incident. But there were not, in the end, enough defections and Maduro was able to quell the unrest.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

While he said the option of U.S. military aid is "great news," he confirmed he would not support a unilateral process. Any U.S. intervention, the Post reports, would have to occur in unison with Venezuelan forces that turned against Maduro.

"I think today there are many Venezuelan soldiers that want to put an end to [leftist guerrillas], and help humanitarian aid get in, who would be happy to receive cooperation to end usurpation," he told the Post. "And if that includes the cooperation of honorable countries like the United States, I think that would be an option." Read more at The Washington Post.

Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.