The toppling and reported capture by invading American military units of Nicolas Maduro will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. This power grab is unlawful, unprovoked, and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, disregards national territorial sovereignty, and potentially creates an state of anarchy within the country.
It is chaos made policy. But this is the world we now live in – the world according to the US President.
An Extraordinary and Dangerous Assertion of Unfettered US Power
The direct attack on Venezuela signifies an remarkable, hazardous declaration of unchecked American might and arrives the same week that Trump threatened military strikes against another unpopular government opposed to the West: the one in Tehran. It follows many months of escalating US military, economic and political pressure on Maduro, including lethal maritime attacks on vessels suspected of drug smuggling.
Trump claims to be acting to prevent illegal narcotics flowing into the US via Venezuela and to cease an purported flood of “criminal element” migrants. In an echo of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he is also charged with desiring Venezuela’s vast oil and gas resources – doubts strengthened by frequent, unlawful US confiscations of Venezuelan oil tankers.
But Trump’s primary motives appear to be individual hostility directed at Maduro, and a wish to resurrect the 19th-century Monroe doctrine by establishing a US sphere of influence and dominance throughout the west.
Regional Outrage and Global Repercussions
Hemispheric heads of state, such as Colombia’s president, who has clashed with Trump in the past few months, greeted the coup with fury and concern; in part, possibly, because they worry they also could become victims of Washington’s aggressive new hegemony. Cuba’s leftwing government has special reason for worry. It relies heavily on Venezuela’s regime for cheap energy and political and economic support.
The US top diplomat has made no secret of his desire for a change in government in Havana. In Panama, too, anxiety levels will be running high. Trump has previously threatened military action there, over authority over the Panama Canal. Indeed, the alleged apprehension of Maduro brings to mind the 1989 US incursion into Panama and the overthrow and detention of its leader at the time.
Autocratic, undemocratic governments globally will be closely observing Trump’s subsequent moves, as will Washington’s democratic allies. Iran condemned the coup. It has good reason to be apprehensive. But Russia’s president may not be totally displeased by the removal of his Venezuelan ally.
A Perilous Benchmark for International Disputes
Trump’s unjustified turn to force is not so very different from actions in invading Ukraine. Both have illegally attacked a bordering nation and sought to remove its leadership. For China’s leader, whose forces were last week conducting military exercises against the “separatists” of Taiwan, Trump has just established a benchmark he may one day gladly follow.
Trump’s coup is of great concern to Britain, the EU and democratic Western nations. They ought to, and have to, unequivocally condemn it. It openly confronts the laws and tenets of the global system they hold dear. The US has yet again disregarded the United Nations and conventional approaches of resolving disputes between nations. And it is acting with seemingly little consideration for what happens next in Venezuela.
Uncertain Aftermath and Potential for Chaos
The Caracas government has been decapitated, but remaining high-ranking figures of the regime seem to remain at their posts. They are urging resistance and, potentially, retaliation against the US. There are unverified accounts of civilian casualties. If a power vacuum develops, public order might disintegrate, igniting civil war or a possible military coup. And it is unclear whether the most recent American armed intervention has ended, or may escalate further.
The notion that banished dissident figures will swiftly return and that full democracy will now be reinstated is naive. The next few days will be decisive. And the responsibility lies entirely with Trump.
The Illusion of a Peacemaker
Trump’s imprudent move should at last bury his always misleading self-portrayal as a “world peacemaker”. It’s high time that European leaders publicly recognise him for who he is – a global warmaker, a universal menace.
Each time he stumbles clumsily into areas of dispute, setting deadlines, delivering final demands, picking favourites and profiting from suffering, the pursuit of fair and enduring peace is set back.
Little wonder peace is elusive. And strangely, even while presenting himself as a disinterested peacemaker and one who avoids intervention, Trump simultaneously wages war on the world. The US conducted unprecedented levels of air strikes in the Middle East and Africa last year, surveys show.
A Legacy in Blood
Since resuming the presidency a year ago, the ostensibly peace-seeking President has bombed Yemen, carelessly killing numerous civilians after loosening rules of engagement; bombed Nigeria, to detrimental outcomes; struck locations in Somalia, Iraq and Syria; and targeted Iranian sites, where he falsely inflated the success of US strikes on atomic energy sites. He even refuses to rule out attacking Greenland, a independent land of a NATO partner.
What’s going on in the President's mind? A charitable view is that in matters of war and peace, he has no idea what his actions entail – no plan, no understanding – and makes up policy as he goes, depending on how he feels.
The more ominous reading says he knows exactly what he’s at, that greater and more severe actions is to come. Like previous second-term presidents who ran out of road at home, Trump finds the global platform offers greater possibilities for the exercise of power and self-importance. He is forging a historical record in blood.
Trump’s irresponsible, dangerously erratic conduct is getting noticeably more severe. His Venezuela “success” may embolden him to attempt more and larger, irrational atrocities. He struts and preens, cries havoc! and unleashes the hounds of conflict.
