Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- May 2, 2019

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro holds a flag during a rally in Caracas, May 1. REUTERS/Fausto Torrealba

Uri Friedman, The Atlantic: How an Elaborate Plan to Topple Venezuela’s President Went Wrong

The United States thought all the pieces were in place for Maduro to leave. Then everything came crashing down.

In the effort to topple Nicolás Maduro, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States once told me, the military men propping up Venezuela’s authoritarian president are like chess pieces.

If they defect from the regime, “you lose that chess piece,” Francisco Santos explained. “They work better from the inside.”

As Tuesday, April 30, began, the United States and its allies thought they finally had checkmate, after months of building up the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president and recruiting more than 50 nations to their cause.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- May 2, 2019

Guaido-Maduro standoff exacting heavy toll on Venezuelans -- Günther Maihold, DW

Guaidó's uprising seems to have flatlined. What's next for Venezuela? -- Tom Phillips and Joe Parkin Daniels, The Guardian

Venezuela Is Armed to the Hilt -- Ryan C. Berg & Andrés Martínez-Fernández, Foreign Policy

China’s Selective Memory -- Denise Y. Ho, Project Syndicate

Ankara's realignment with Russia will cost Turkey more than it thinks

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Why is it so difficult to track down IS leader? -- Frank Gardner, BBC

The debate behind Trump's move to tighten Iran oil sanctions -- Humeyra Pamuk and Timothy Gardner, Reuters

Six charts that show how hard US sanctions have hit Iran -- BBC

Time to Find a New Approach to Beijing -- Bernhard Zand, Spiegel Online

The Suez Crisis and the Fog of Diplomacy -- Jordan Chandler Hirsch, War On The rocks

Russia and NATO: A Dialogue of Differences -- Mathieu Boulègue, Chatham House

No laughing matter? What Ukraine's joker-in-chief says about politics today -- Matt Forde, The Guardian

Ukraine’s new president and Russian relations -- Stefan Karlo Rajic, The Strategist

How Brazil and South Africa became the world's most populist countries -- Dom Phillips, Jason Burke, and Paul Lewis, The Guardian

Trump Is No Passing Phenomenon -- Gérard Araud with Yara Bayoumy, The Atlantic

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