When Americans woke up on Saturday and learned that the United States had invaded Venezuela and kidnapped their president, they probably expected their nation’s elected officials to offer an explanation as to why we had done this.
After months of military buildup and activity in the Caribbean, it was no surprise that the United States had finally decided to embark on a crusade to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. What was surprising was that the latest US regime change operation was apparently designed to leave him intact.
Kindly, President donald trump he duly appeared with his top cabinet officials on Saturday to clear things up. Among the range of winston belli he offered were the war on drugs (“those drugs mostly come from a place called Venezuela”); immigration (“they sent all the bad guys to the United States”); terrorism (“a relentless campaign of violence, terror and subversion”); even the altruistic promotion of American ideals (“we want peace, freedom and justice for the great people of Venezuela”).
Oh… and the oil. “As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a failure, a total failure for a long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing compared to what they could have been pumping,” Trump said, promising that American companies would go to Venezuela and “start making money for the country.”
Well, choose which of these you think is the real reason for the military intervention, or make up another one. There are several that seem as plausible as anything proposed: the need to counter Chinese influence in the Americas; a strategy to undermine Cuba; a balm for Trump’s ego in the face of the dancing challenge of Nicolás Maduro… Perhaps simply an uncontrollable impulse to demonstrate pure, Murica-style toughness, after decades of frustration and failure in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In light of those failures, the most surprising thing to emerge from Saturday’s press conference was the direct declaration that the United States was seizing power in Caracas.
“We are going to govern the country until such time as we can make a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said, later adding: “We are not afraid of troops on the ground if we have to have them.”
Many viewers couldn’t have been more stunned if a furious Uncle Sam on steroids had kicked down the door and hit them between the eyes with the Stars and Stripes. Here was an American president openly ordering regime change and admitting to installing a puppet, and it wasn’t even couched in diplomatic words or wrapped in high ideals. It was outdoors. The United States is taking over Venezuela. Because? To make money with their oil. As? Well, through Delta Force and then… a shrug of the shoulders and a vague wave of his hand in the direction of the State Department.
“[Secretary of State] frame [Rubio]”He’s working on it directly,” Trump said, noting that Venezuela’s vice president, a regime loyalist, appeared to have assumed power after Maduro disappeared into the night sky with several new American acquaintances. “He just had a conversation with her, and she is essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
It was unfortunate that a few hours later, the woman in question, Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, denied in a televised speech that she would cooperate with the gringos. “In Venezuela there is only one president and his name is Nicolás Maduro.”
Many anti-regime Venezuelans were initially excited that Maduro had been overthrown, but were much more pessimistic about the fact that Rodríguez was now in charge, and that Washington’s decapitation attack appears to have removed not the head of the snake, but a single head of a hydra. Maduro is gone, his regime is still in power.
“This is the first time I wonder if I am on the opposite side of American politics,” says a Venezuelan opposition activist. rolling stone. “The United States now supports the regime, instead of opposing it,” the activist says.
However, they were sure the situation was changing and said they believed the Trump administration would deal with “whoever is easiest to manipulate, corrupt and make deals.”
“What’s the strategy? Who do you really want to be in charge?” asks a former US special operations soldier with experience in South America, who previously worked in the region.
He says distrust within the Maduro regime will now begin to peak, with top officials convinced that at least one of their compatriots is secretly working with the Americans to take over the country. With Maduro gone, a shake-up is inevitable and could lead to internal conflict, possibly even civil war.
“We’re in for a rollercoaster of challengers to the throne. But anyone who comes to the throne with Washington’s blessing will lack legitimacy,” observes the special operations soldier, saying he believes the only thing that could truly unite Venezuelans is opposition to American control. “After destabilizing the country, what does Washington want?”
What, in fact.
A more perfectly designed scenario could not have been written to showcase American military power than the attack to kidnap Maduro. All the elite elements of the United States military and national security apparatus were used. It was an eloquent testament to the trillions of dollars the United States has spent on advanced weaponry, along with decades of practical experience conducting special operations.
It is unquestionable that Washington has tools of military power that surpass any competitor. The problem is that tactical victories do not guarantee strategic success. The idea that a country can simply jump out of the blue and change another government to its liking through force of arms and without complications is an illusion: see the United States in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Russia in Chechnya or Ukraine.
Many commentators and critics focus on the broader implications of the attack on Venezuela, its legality or the idea that it will usher in a new era of realpolitik as Thucydides describes it, where “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
What will stop, these commentators ask, Russia or China from doing the same, in Ukraine or Taiwan?
You don’t have to be cynical to think that the answer to that question has less to do with the norms of international law than with pure military capability. In fact, Russia attempted several times to capture President Volodymyr Zelensky in the early days of its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February and March 2022. It failed, at great cost to its special forces units.
Trump’s foray into Venezuela was undoubtedly a military success. Its broader implications remain to be seen. But it is another step toward an unbridled imperial presidency, actively working to dismantle a global system created by the United States itself, which also creates chaos at home and abroad.
Paper shields alone have never stopped the powerful from taking advantage of their weaker neighbors, and most world leaders set aside legality and morality when it suits them to do so. Trump is not the first. The international order that the United States has long defended is a system of double standards, hypocritically applied or set aside to satisfy the whims of Washington.
True believers in MAGA reject that it was a system that benefited the United States. They argue that, as most nations follow their own interests, the America First era is at least a more honest system of international relations.
You can also call this system the law of the jungle.
But of course, none of the jungle animals have nuclear weapons.
