WTH: Questions about Venezuela

And fewer certain answers than some will share...

As the dust settles on the lightning operation to arrest Venezuelan dictator Nicolàs Maduro and his wife, the correct approach is to ask questions, not to sit in judgment. Not yet.

Some ground rules: If your hot take is predicated on your feelings about Donald Trump — as, frankly, the vast majority are — then this is not the post for you. But if you’re genuinely interested in whether what Donald Trump did in Operation Absolute Resolve is good or bad, helpful or harmful, legal or questionable, then here are some questions that may be of interest with links if you’d like to dig deeper.

Is Maduro a bad guy?

You bet your bottom dollar. So let’s talk about what kind of bad guy.

Human Rights:

• The UN Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) reported that security forces like the FAES and SEBIN have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings and used torture—including electric shocks and sexual violence—against dissidents (OHCHR Report 2025).

• Following the disputed 2024 elections, reports documented the detention of over 200 adolescents, some as young as 13, who were subjected to "cruel and inhuman treatment" (Global Centre for R2P).

• The ICC has been investigating the regime for crimes against humanity since 2021. In late 2025, the Maduro-led National Assembly attempted to withdraw from the Rome Statute to evade this oversight (Al Jazeera).

Narco-terrorism:

• Maduro and high-ranking military officials (the Cartel de los Soles) are accused of partnering with FARC dissidents to flood the U.S. with cocaine. Maduro currently faces charges in the Southern District of New York for narco-terrorism conspiracy (U.S. Dept of Justice/AP News).

• The Tren de Aragua transnational gang expanded under the regime's lawless environment, spreading violence and human trafficking throughout the Western Hemisphere (Journal of Democracy).

National Security threat:

• Russia has supplied Venezuela with advanced weaponry, including S-300VM surface-to-air missiles and Su-30MKV fighter jets. In late 2025, Russia reportedly flew in additional Buk-M2 and Pantsir-S1 systems to bolster Maduro’s defenses (United24 Media).

• Iran has supplied Venezuela with Mohajer and Shahed-class drones. Reports indicate that Iran helped build a domestic drone production capability in Venezuela to threaten regional stability (Hindustan Times).

• China has provided “digital authoritarianism” tools, including surveillance technology, and has been the primary buyer of Venezuelan oil, often through illicit channels to bypass U.S. sanctions (SBS News).

Foreign terrorism:

• Venezuela has been accused of facilitating Hezbollah’s financial operations, including money laundering and drug trafficking, through its diplomatic channels and the Lebanese diaspora (RAND Corporation).

• The Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC dissidents operate openly in Venezuela, controlling illegal gold mines and drug routes with the complicity of the Venezuelan military (State Department Terrorism Report).

• Cuba’s intelligence services (G2) are deeply embedded within Maduro’s security apparatus, essentially acting as the regime’s “praetorian guard” (Latin America Reports).

Is Maduro the legitimately elected leader of Venezuela?

Nah. Let’s start with…

The 2024 election:

• The National Electoral Council (CNE), packed with Maduro loyalists, declared Maduro the winner without ever releasing precinct-level vote tallies (actas). The UN stated this has “no precedent in contemporary democratic elections” (UN Panel of Experts).

• The opposition collected and digitized over 80% of the physical tally sheets, which showed Edmundo González winning with approximately 67% of the vote compared to Maduro’s 30% (Journal of Democracy).

• The Carter Center, the only major international observer permitted, concluded the election “did not meet international standards” and “cannot be considered democratic” (The Carter Center).

Disqualification of the legitimate opposition:

• Despite winning a landslide in the opposition primary, María Corina Machado was banned from holding public office on arbitrary administrative grounds. Her replacement, Corina Yoris, was also blocked from registering via a mysterious “technical glitch” in the electoral portal (Human Rights Foundation).

• After the 2024 vote, the regime issued an arrest warrant for the actual winner, Edmundo González, forcing him to flee to Spain to avoid imprisonment (Amnesty International).

Dismantling Venezuelan democracy:

• The Maduro-controlled Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of the executive, including “validating” the 2024 election results despite the lack of evidence (Wikipedia/2024 Political Crisis).

• In late 2024, the National Assembly passed laws strictly limiting the ability of NGOs to operate, effectively criminalizing civil society and international oversight (Global Centre for R2P).

2025 local elections:

• These elections were characterized by a total boycott from legitimate opposition parties and record-low turnout.

• The regime utilized sham votes to replace any remaining local officials not aligned with the PSUV (ruling party) (WOLA / ReliefWeb).

Was the Trump administration “justified” in removing Maduro?

This is a harder call. But where you sit on Trump almost certainly defines where you will stand on this question. Dictator? Check. Threat to American interests? Check. Narco-trafficker? Check. Enabler for rogue regimes in the Western Hemisphere? Check.

The issue is not whether there was sufficient justification, including a U.S.-indictment, the question is why Maduro and not, say, Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel. Cuba almost certainly engages in many of the same activities as Maduro, and is 90 miles from our shores. Why Maduro and not Xi Jinping? Or Putin? There seems to be a double standard at work here.

The simple answer on Maduro is, because we could. The CIA has wide visibility into Venezuela, the operation itself was straightforward and clean, and Maduro posed both a drug and gang threat to Americans, and successfully brought Hezbollah into firing range of the United States.

The final point on this question: Presidents can always find a reason to oust a dictator, and often there is little sense to the choice. Why did Obama take on Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, but ignore Syria’s Bashar al Assad? If human rights were the casus belli, as Obama said at the time, surely Syria’s half a million dead and four million refugees trumped Qadhafi’s crimes.

What’s the answer: He’s the president. He gets to make the call.

But is it legal?

See above for the sit/stand formulation. Watching the not too bright soon-to-be House speaker Hakeem Jeffries talk about how only Congress can declare war made me sad for our nation. Dude… did Obama come to you (or your predecessor) on Libya? Did George H.W. Bush come to him on Panama? How about Bill Clinton on Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and all the other places he sent our military?

Bottom line on the politics: If Congress doesn’t like it and wants to protect what too many members believe is their Constitutional right to declare (not make) war, then Congress can defund operations like the one in Venezuela. Don’t hold your breath.

For all intents and purposes, Congress has dealt itself out of the “Declaration of War” game (five major wars in US history, two in the 20th century), and rarely exercises even its more limited prerogatives when it comes to decisions involving military action. Congress can stop anything in its tracks with resolve and an end to funding. The fact that it hasn’t tells you all you need to know.

Final point on this one: If you hear someone screaming this operation was “illegal,” turn off the TV. They’re almost certainly bending their lawyer act to fit their political views. If the next conflict that comes along is one they support—or was launched by a President from their political party—they’ll have no trouble overlooking the fact that it wasn’t authorized by Congress. The only sincere politicos on the War Powers question are libertarians, who are consistent, and always wrong. But consistent.

Will it work?

To me, this is the 800 pound gorilla of a question. Someone had a brilliant tweet on the wisdom and rationale of Absolute Resolve:

So, is this about the threat that Maduro represented, or is it about getting Venezuelan oil? About Donald Trump’s cronies in the oil biz scheming from their mansions in Miami, or about Iran and China and drugs in America? Listening to the President, we can find evidence to support affirmative answers to both questions. So, the “what next” is going to matter a good deal.

Elliott Abrams, who was the Venezuela envoy in Trump’s first term, had a super piece on this question in The Free Press. Bottom line, however, is that if Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s VP, can be persuaded to preside over a transition to a democratically elected government, that’s good. Some are suggesting that she is deep in negotiations with Team Trump to do just that. But if she and the dangerous interior minister Diosdado Cabello and the equally malign defense minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez are allowed to maintain their hold on power, with explicit permission from the Trump administration, that is a disastrous outcome. It’s as simple as that.