Sending Machado into a country still crawling with armed Chavista enforcers, with no army and no office behind her, would risk her life for nothing. The smarter play is squeezing the old guard into doing the dirty work of clearing out the cartel bosses, no American boots on the ground required. Patience here beats another Libya-style collapse.
Blocking the most popular leader in Venezuela from going home is not diplomacy, it's collusion with the very people who stole an election. A single phone call could open the door, yet the red carpet gets rolled out for an authoritarian clique instead, all to keep an oil arrangement intact. Managed authoritarianism serves foreign balance sheets, not Venezuelans.
A functioning bureaucracy can be salvaged without handing the old regime a veto over who gets to compete in politics. Postwar Japan and Italy kept the machinery running while exiles came home and parties reorganized, proving stability and open competition are not rivals. Oil wealth flowing back to unreformed hands simply rebuilds an authoritarian network with better funding.
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