The Financial Times reported over the weekend about the possibility of U.S. attacks on Venezuela in the coming weeks:
One possibility highlighted by experts is that Trump may decide to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles from navy destroyers or the submarine at targets inside Venezuela. These could include cocaine-producing laboratories or bases for Colombian Marxist guerrillas involved in the drug trade and operating from Venezuela.
Firing off missiles is the sort of useless performative militarism that the president seems to enjoy most, so this is probably what will happen. Trump could order strikes, blow up a few targets, and then boast about how tough he is. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Trump is not averse to using force. He has proven that more than once this year with his illegal bombings of Yemen and Iran. If the hawks in his Cabinet can persuade him that raining missiles down on Venezuela will be low-risk and politically beneficial, he will jump at the chance.
It is possible that Trump might entertain riskier operations aimed at capturing or killing Maduro. According to the FT report, this is not as unlikely as it sounds:
“I am 100 per cent sure that the aim of this operation is to arrest Maduro and get him out of power,” said one person who has been involved in discussions about the naval operation.
The Trump administration has been deliberately blurring the line between the Venezuelan government and cartels by accusing Maduro of being nothing more than the head of a cartel himself. They don’t accept that he is the president of Venezuela, and so it isn’t hard to imagine them treating him as if he were just a drug kingpin and not a head of state. They don’t need to invade Venezuela with a large force to carry out a raid to abduct or assassinate Maduro.
It is worth remembering that any military action that the U.S. takes in Venezuela will be illegal under both U.S. and international law. Congress hasn’t authorized the use of force against any groups in Venezuela or the Venezuelan government. Firing missiles into Venezuela would be an act of unprovoked aggression and a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. Obviously any operation aimed at removing the de facto president would be an egregious act of war.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
