The United States’ track record of fomenting regime change is very poor. In Afghanistan, incredibly, it is negotiating a peace agreement with the Taliban after 18 years of a United States-led war to defeat the Taliban. Interventions in Iraq, Syria and Libya have also led to continuous strife. There is no guarantee that Venezuela would be any different.

The spiral of violence and chaos could start imminently. By commandeering Venezuela’s only lifeline to food supplies and oil field equipment, the United States has lit the fuse. By the Trump administration’s own estimates, sanctions will cost Venezuela’s economy $11 billion in lost oil revenue in the next year , which is equal to 94 percent of what the country spent last year in goods imports. The result is likely to be an economic and humanitarian catastrophe of a dimension never seen in our hemisphere.

We strongly urge an alternative approach, based on seeking a peaceful and negotiated transition of power rather than a winner-take-all game of chicken. We start from the proposition that the people of Venezuela should not be the victims of a power struggle between Mr. Maduro and the opposition, nor between the external backers of the two sides.

As much as Mr. Maduro’s foes hate to admit, and indeed find repellent, Chavismo still carries some political weight in the society and among the military. We therefore recommend a compromise solution rather than a fight to the finish. One of us recently wrote about a key historical case — Poland in 1989 — where two bitter foes, the existing Communist regime and the opposition Solidarity movement, agreed to cohabit in the government for a two-year transition period until future presidential elections. Leaders in both the government and opposition in Venezuela have expressed interest in negotiations, yet each side is also being encouraged by outside allies to ride out the struggle without compromise.

None of the foregoing is meant to excuse or deny the atrocious mismanagement of the country by the government of Nicolás Maduro, nor the serious evidence of multiple and systematic human rights violations by his forces. Yet we do not need to let the justifiable outrage at these abuses lead us blindly into a protracted conflict that could only increase the suffering of Venezuelans. What we need is an understanding that negotiation and compromise are key to a peaceful solution.