Guaido high-risk plan flops as Maduro keeps grip on military

Bloomberg

It was a ploy that from its outset felt like a long shot. Before dawn, Juan Guaido, flanked by his political mentor Leopoldo Lopez and a handful of soldiers who had broken ranks, issued a message to Venezuela and the world: The time to topple Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian regime was right now.
By dusk, with Maduro still firmly in control of the military command, Lopez had sought refuge in the Chilean ambassador’s residence in Caracas before moving to the Spanish embassy, and the streets were beginning to empty of the protesters who had heeded Guaido’s call to join what he called Operation Liberty.
While likely not a fatal blow to Guaido and the three-month-old push to unseat Maduro, it was certainly the biggest setback yet. And it raised crucial questions:
Will Maduro use this moment to carry out his longstanding threat to jail Guaido once and for all? If that happens, how will the US, the de facto leader of an international coalition backing Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, respond?
The whole episode was so bizarre — with Guaido seemingly lacking the military might to have any chance at all — that it was hard to understand the day’s events. One explanation, as related by National Security Adviser John Bolton, was that a deal had been struck behind the scenes and that key members of Maduro’s regime had agreed to flip, paving the way for Guaido to easily assume power.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed on CNN that Maduro had in fact been heading to Havana, when his allies in the Russian government talked him out of leaving. Russia’s government denied that, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova telling CNN the US was using “fakes as a part of an information war.”
Bolton called out Venezuela’s defense minister and chief justice on Twitter, saying this was their last chance to accept Guaido and escape sanctions or “go down with the ship.” Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican who has played a key role in shaping US policy on Venezuela, tweeted that high-ranking Venezuelan officials who publicly support Maduro had “been working to get him out” and that their double cross would soon be exposed.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, one of those officials, took to the airwaves to declare the people involved in the attempted takeover “ridiculous,” calling what had happened “a mediocre coup.”
Bolton insisted that it wasn’t a coup d’etat because Maduro had stolen last year’s election; Guaido, as the head of the national assembly, is the constitutionally mandated interim president. Trump threatened a “full and complete” embargo of Cuba.