Donald Trump has positioned himself as a distasteful alternative to the country’s traditional hawkish foreign policy since ascending the escalator in 2015 to announce his first presidential run.
Some of the US president’s political rivals have been called “warmongers” and “war hawks” by the president.
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However, Trump’s decision to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and declare that the US would “run” the Latin American nation has drawn comparisons to the regime change wars he has opposed in his political career.
Some Trump supporters of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement criticize Washington’s ongoing conflict with Venezuela. They support Trump’s policy of focusing on the nation’s own problems rather than regional conflicts.
Trump’s influence on Republican politics appears to be strong, with the majority of his party’s lawmakers applauding his actions.
Senator Lindsey Graham wrote in a social media post, “You should take great pride in initiating the liberation of Venezuela.”
“It is in America’s national security interest to deal with Venezuela, the centerpiece of which,” I have frequently said.
Graham’s reference to a “drug caliphate” seems to support the trend toward comparing the US’s actions against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America to the so-called “war on terror” ().
The US senator praised the FIFA Peace Prize winner, who was named in honor of him by Gianni Infantino, the association’s president, in December, and called him “the GOAT of the American presidency,” which means “the greatest of all time.”
muted criticism
Even some of the Republican skeptics of foreign interventions favored the arrest of Maduro, even though it was anticipated that Graham and other foreign policy hawks in Trump’s orbit would support the actions taken against Venezuela.
Former Congressman Matt Gaetz, one of the most vocal opponents of left-wing hawkish foreign policy, made fun of Venezuela’s “capture.”
According to him, “Maduro will hate CECOT,” he wrote on X, referring to the notorious prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent hundreds of alleged gang members without due process.
Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian who has been a vocal critic of Congress’s war-making power, only expressed muted disapproval of Trump’s failure to grant lawmakers’ permission to launch military operations in Venezuela.
In a lengthy statement, which mostly refuted the idea of “socialism” in the US, he wrote that “time will tell whether regime change in Venezuela is successful without significant monetary or human cost.
The executive’s authority to go to war without Congressional authorization was best, but not forget, to limit the horror of war and to restrict war to acts of defense. Hope that Maduro’s passing and the Venezuelan people’s desire for a second chance do not diminish those peace principles.
Republican Senator Mike Lee questioned the legality of the attack early on Saturday morning. Without a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force, he wrote on X, “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action.”
Later, Lee claimed that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed him that Maduro was being legally arrested while US troops were carrying out an arrest warrant.
According to the senator, “This action likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect US personnel from actual or imminent attacks.”
Dissent
One of the few voices withdrew was Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Americans are depressed by our own government’s unending military hostility and support for international conflicts because they are forced to pay for it, according to Greene, who wrote on X.
Greene, a former ally of Trump who split with the president and is leaving Congress next week, refuted the claim that Trump had ordered Maduro’s “capture” due to his alleged involvement in the drug trade.
She noted that Venezuela is not a major exporter of fentanyl, which accounts for the majority of US overdose deaths.
She also emphasized that Trump was granted a pardon last month for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a drug trafficker who was serving a 45-year prison sentence.
While Americans are consistently facing rising costs of living, housing, healthcare, and learning about scams and tax fraud, according to Greene, “Regime change, funding foreign wars, and American’s]sic] tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes, foreigners both home and abroad, and foreign governments,”
Another Republican member, Congressman Tomas Massie, warned that attacking Venezuela would involve “oil and regime change” in a speech he delivered earlier this month in the House of Representatives.
Are we prepared to receive swarms of Venezuelans, who are likely to turn out to be refugees, and billions in American assets that will be used to devastate and inevitably rebuild the country? In the Western Hemisphere, is there a “miniature Afghanistan”? In the remarks, Massie stated.
We should vote on it as a people’s voice and in accordance with our Constitution if that cost is afeu for this Congress.
While Greene and Massie are party outliers, Trump’s risky moves in Venezuela were successful in the short run because Washington has little to lose from Maduro’s arrest.
Few Republicans, in contrast, were against the US invasion of Iraq when former president George W. Bush resigned in 2003 after replacing Saddam Hussein with the “mission accomplished” sign on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
However, there is now a nearly universal opinion that the invasion of Iraq was a geopolitical disaster.
Venezuela is still awash with the sand of war, and it’s not clear who will take over or how Trump will “run” it.
The US president has not ruled out sending “boots on the ground” to Venezuela, which raises the possibility of another Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan as well as the possibility of US occupation.
Do we really think George Washington will take the place of Nicolas Maduro? How did that go in Syria, Iraq, or Libya? In his address to Congress, Massie made a warning.
Source: Aljazeera
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