Maduro's capture is 'beginning of the end' for Cuba's regime, House Intelligence chair says

The top lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee believes that the weekend capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro may have a domino effect in Cuba.

Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark., called it "the beginning of the end" for the regime there.

"Cuba and Venezuela have had a symbiotic relationship for a long, long time. Cuba needs Venezuelan oil. They no longer have the resources that will be provided by Venezuela," Crawford said on Fox News' "The Big Weekend Show."

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According to Crawford, Venezuela also benefited from the partnership by receiving medical assistance from Cuba and military protections used by Maduro. 

President Miguel Diaz-Canel leads Cuba's government - a one-party Communist state that has long been at odds with the United States. The U.S. has an economic embargo on the country, restricting exports to and from Cuba as well as travel restrictions that limit tourism.

Those measures have been in place for 63 years.

"In February 1962, President John F. Kennedy proclaimed an embargo on trade between the United States and Cuba and directed the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury to implement the embargo, which remains in place today," the Department of State explains on its website. 

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Despite those longstanding tensions, Crawford noted that an impulse for change may also come from a cultural closeness between Cuba and the United States on top of the crumbling of its Venezuelan partnerships.

"You may very well see a popular uprising there. There's a lot of connective tissue. We have really, for lack of a better term, we have a familial bond with Cuba," Crawford said. "We have so many families in South Florida that are directly connected to family members in Cuba that remittances are a big part of their economy. They rely on the United States, whether they want to admit it or not.

"We can play an outsize role there in influencing those folks and helping them to organically rise up and help overcome that oppressive regime," Crawford added.

Crawford did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the U.S. should also take military action in Havana.

Crawford said the political cascade caused by the capture of Maduro and the American presence in Venezuela would not be limited to Cuba. 

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"This also plays into what I call the communist triad of the Western hemisphere, that is Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. This probably doesn't bode well for Nicaragua if we're being honest about it. I mean, I'm sure they're watching anxiously, wondering when the next boot is gonna fall and where they'll be in relation to that," Crawford said.

He also sent a message to America's larger adversaries who have built relationships with those countries in Latin and South America.

"Iran, Russia, China, you're playing in the wrong sandbox," Crawford said.