President Trump is right to be miffed that Nicolás Maduro’s dangerous narco-regime is still in power in Venezuela. With the departure of national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday, that policy now is in the hands of diplomats from the United States who never really supported Trump and never really confronted Maduro. The very tough financial sanctions pushed by Bolton are being squandered on a woefully weak strategy that amounted to begging Maduro to cede power. If Bolton were the trigger-happy hawk he is said to be, he might have pushed for the decisive victory that Trump expected when he said, “All options are on the table.” Instead, a threat the president identified early in his term is growing and spreading on America’s doorstep.

The costs of complacent and misguided diplomacy continue to mount. America’s key foes Cuba, Russia, and China have fortified their foothold in Venezuela by helping the regime outlast U.S. sanctions and outflank U.S. policy. An emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly considering whether to deploy troops to Venezuela, threatening the same terrifying tactics that cost a half-million lives in Syria. Meanwhile, the U.S. ally Colombia (already bearing the brunt of 1.5 million Venezuelan refugees) faces a new threat as narco-terrorist commanders declared last month that they will resume their war from the safe haven of Maduro’s Venezuela. The security and stability of Colombia, where the U.S. invested $10 billion over 10 years to bolster a stalwart friend, are in doubt.