But if Mr. Maduro is eager to wear the mantle of the aggrieved leftist menaced by American imperialism, it fits him poorly. Millions of Venezuelans have left the country in recent years, creating a regional refugee crisis. People are suffering from hunger and a lack of access to medicine and basic goods. The economy has shrunk by half in five years, and inflation in 2018 reached 1,000,000 percent. Opposition to the Maduro government extends to all classes of Venezuelans.

In a reversal of the region’s most typical Cold War pattern, it is Mr. Maduro’s supposedly socialist government that relies on paramilitary violence to maintain power. China and Russia, which still support the Maduro government, are no less interested in profiting from Venezuela’s oil than the United States.

It is as yet unclear how directly the United States shaped Mr. Guaidó’s decision to challenge Mr. Maduro’s authority. In December, he met secretly with officials in the United States, Colombia and Brazil, all governed by right-wing governments. But what is clear is that support for Mr. Guaidó — or at least for an alternative to Mr. Maduro — extends beyond the right. Mr. Guaidó was recognized as interim president by most members of the Lima Group — including Peru, Canada, Ecuador and Argentina — a body formed in 2017 to seek a peaceful resolution to the Venezuelan crisis.

Even if Mr. Guaidó did coordinate his declaration with the United States, the popular discontent that he channels is real. Many Venezuelans are eager to find help wherever they can, even if that means a Trump administration that is hardly known for its hostility to dictatorship or its commitment to human rights.

This is a vulnerability for the opposition. Washington is all too ready to lend a hand, but in doing so it could — as it has so many times in Latin America’s history — cause more harm than good.

Mr. Maduro will use United States intervention to rally his remaining domestic and internal support under an anti-imperialist banner, drawing parallels with Washington’s long history in the region. United States intervention would also undermine the prospect for the thing that Venezuela needs most to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy: national reconciliation. A government that owes a debt to Mr. Bolton and Mr. Abrams will not only be viewed with suspicion by many on the left in Venezuela; it could be forced to abide by constraints imposed by the neoconservatives in Washington about which political actors are considered acceptable partners in a reconciliation process.

The situation in Venezuela is, undoubtedly, difficult. But when it comes to Latin America, Washington has a long history of making difficult situations worse. It is precisely because Venezuela deserves a better government than it currently has that the United States should not play a role in choosing it.

Patrick Iber is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of “Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America.”

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