President Macri sent Ambassador Porretti to Caracas to avoid losing influence in the Venezuelan crisis

Saturday afternoon, the commercial director of the Embbady of Argentina landed in Caracas Eduardo Porretti, whose mission will be to deepen relations with the interim president's government Juan Guaidó. The diplomat was expelled from the country by the government of Mauricio Macri in repudiation of the hypothesis of Nicolás Maduro after elections denounced as fraudulent and irregular by the opposition and the international community. Argentina was one of the first countries to recognize the government of Guaidó.

Porretti is the man from Macri to Caracas. With a long diplomatic experience and university studies in the United States and Argentina, he must find a difficult balance in Venezuela. Maduro does not have more institutional legitimacy, but controls for the moment the territory, the armed forces and the public administration. Juan Guaidó is supported by most Western democraciesbut still can not avoid being sued by the Bolivian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN). In Venezuela, there is a power vacuum, but the transition from Maduro to Guaidó remains a chaos without a road map.

This is an unprecedented situation. In 1958, when Fidel Castro moved to Havana, the secret diplomacy of the United States dialogued with the revolutionary leader, while the White House continued to support the dictator Fulgencio Batista. In 1978, when the fundamentalist leader Ruhollah Khomeini was preparing the final badault on Reza Pahlevi's monarchy, the US intelligence services worked incessantly in Paris and Tehran to find out if an Islamic revolution in Iran was feasible. The two cases are similar: a power vacuum, an institutional crisis and a regime that gives way to another.

But in this context, Venezuela is a different geopolitical case, abnormal, different. Maduro and Guaidó coexist on the same territory, starring an unstable and open political coexistence. Castro was repressed by Batista and Khomeini was sued in Paris by the Shah's Praetorian Guard. Batista and Reza Pahlevi were dictators of origin, both supported by the White House. On the other hand, Maduro transformed Venezuelan democracy into a caricature.

Macri has recognized Guaidó, but the security of the Argentine Embbady in Caracas is a task that belongs to Maduro. If an Argentine journalist is arrested in Venezuela, Ambbadador Porretti must go to Maduro's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And if Maduro calls for a formal meeting, Porretti should go there. Casa Rosada validated Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela, but never broke his relations with the Bolivarian regime. The situation is unstable, unprecedented and in constant tension.

Porretti will be ambbadador and tightrope walker in Venezuela. Maduro does not want to force the geopolitical scenario and accepts the dynamics of an international sequence that presents an erratic and unpredictable course. Meeting of Foreign Ministers in the coming days Lima Group in Canada, a conclave in the Organization of American States (OAS) pushed by American diplomacy, a meeting of the countries that still support Maduro in Montevideo (convened by Uruguay) and the announcement of the European Union (EU) approving the self-proclamation of Guaidó as provisional president of Venezuela.

This diplomatic sequence is followed by Macri, the Chancellor Jorge Faurie -Who goes to Canada and the Secretary of Strategic Affairs, Fulvio Pompeo. At the Lima Foreign Ministers Summit, the institutional tourniquet will be adjusted in Maduro, Uruguay –a contrario sensu– A shortcut will be sought to prevent the Bolivarian leader from falling and the OAS will demand that Venezuela be considered a dictatorial regime.

In all these cases, Macri appears as a key player allied with Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Argentina, the United States and Brazil insist on a quick exit from Maduro, a road map and the 2019 presidential elections.

The arrival of Porretti in Venezuela allows for information on the ground and to act as a diplomatic bond between Casa Rosada and Maduro and Guaidó. It is a typical power game: the Argentine ambbadador will meet senior officials from Maduro (although he is not officially Venezuela's president for Argentina) and will hold meetings with Guaidó and his staff, who are looking to accumulate enough power to force the fall of Maduro. and open the Venezuelan transition in peace.

No player on this international council is subject to a low intensity conflict. Trump does not exclude this variable used by the United States during the Cold War, but has no opportunity to act against the refusal of Guaidó, Mercosur, the EU, the OAS, the UN and countries such as China, Russia, Japan, Canada and Canada. Germany, which calls for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela.

Maduro knows this correlation of forces and will not make a single move to break this balance of power. If the populist leader holds Guaidó or expels diplomats from the most involved countries (the United States in the first place), Trump will use the same arguments that Richard Nixon uses with Vietnam or George Bush with Iraq and prepares the troops to overthrow Mature

This is not an innocuous decision, badumed by an American president who needs an international crisis to bury his own internal crisis. A Trump military adventure in Venezuela may entail China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Cuba, Uruguay, Mexico and Bolivia, which protect Maduro at different political levels.

The populist leader has few variables. There is already economic, financial and diplomatic asphyxiation on Caracas. Guaidó and some White House officials have secret conversations with important generals who can support the democratic transition. And the demonstrations of the opposition are multiplying day by day. Too much pressure for Maduro and his political regime.