As military operations go, the US kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro was seamless. But Donald Trump’s Venezuela story is only just beginning. Having ousted its leader, Trump now enthusiastically owns the aftermath. “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he said a few hours later. To put it another way, Trump has converted to regime change. What happens in Venezuela from now on will be on his account.
Trump had been flagging Maduro’s capture for months. The shock lies in his readiness to “run” a sovereign country of almost 30mn people. The last time the US tried this was after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That turned into a Vietnam-style quagmire. Trump made a lot of hay ever since in promising never to repeat George W Bush’s forever wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Until now, he has upheld that line, which is popular with most Americans, not just his Maga base.
But as Trump’s second term progresses, he is acquiring a taste for more imperial-style operations. Saturday’s early morning raid on Caracas came barely a week after US air strikes on north-west Nigeria in a yuletide operation Trump said was to protect the country’s Christians. It also followed last summer’s US pummeling of Iran’s underground nuclear sites. Trump again this week threatened to strike Iran to rescue people demonstrating against its regime. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted at 2.58am on Friday morning.