From: tsm@fastmail.ca   
      
   On Jan 4, 2026 at 11:24:44 AM EST, "Julian"  wrote:   
      
   > On 04/01/2026 15:07, Tara wrote:   
   >> On Jan 4, 2026 at 9:06:13 AM EST, "Julian"  wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Nicolas Maduro is a very lucky man. The Venezuelan dictator – or   
   >>> ex-dictator now – might not feel that way as he enjoys the hospitality   
   >>> of the U.S. justice system after being snatched from the safety and   
   >>> comfort of his own capital on the orders of President Trump. But once   
   >>> he’s had a bit of time to relax, he should compare photos of his   
   >>> capture, Nike-clad and brandishing a water bottle, to the way Saddam   
   >>> Hussein looked when he was dragged out his “spider hole” in 2003 – or   
   >>> the way Muammar Gaddafi looked when a mob of his own people got done   
   >>> with him.   
   >>>   
   >>> Maduro didn’t lose a war or get killed in a revolution against this   
   >>> rule. If elements of his own regime collaborated with the U.S. to get   
   >>> rid of him, he nonetheless would have fared worse if some Venezuelan   
   >>> colonel had dealt with him the way Latin American militaries   
   >>> historically deal with inconvenient leaders. No dictator hopes to end up   
   >>> like Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strongman toppled, arrested, tried,   
   >>> and imprisoned by the United States in the days of the George H.W. Bush   
   >>> administration, but there are far worse fates for those who lead that   
   >>> lifestyle.   
   >>>   
   >>> Trump has once again defied the laws of probability, as well as the   
   >>> rules his critics and many of his supporters alike insist he follow.   
   >>> MAGA’s non-interventionist wing says he shouldn’t have acted against   
   >>> Venezuela at all. Neoconservatives and other center-right advocates of   
   >>> regime change say, on the contrary, that cashiering Maduro doesn’t go   
   >>> far enough – now the U.S. must make Venezuela a liberal democracy.   
   >>> Progressives say much the same thing, though on the farther fringes of   
   >>> the left there’s outright pro-Maduro sentiment.   
   >>>   
   >>> Trump has once again put Democrats in a very awkward position, as he’s   
   >>> done before with immigration and transgender politics. Democrats want to   
   >>> condemn Trump, as always, but do they dare say it’s a bad thing   
   Maduro’s   
   >>> gone?   
   >>>   
   >>> They will be able to say that if Venezuela collapses into chaos, as Iraq   
   >>> did after George W. Bush took down Saddam Hussein. But Trump is doing   
   >>> the opposite of what Bush did in almost every respect: he hasn’t invaded   
   >>> Venezuela, and he hasn’t expressed idealistic aims for what comes next.   
   >>> Bush went out of his way to maintain that oil had nothing to do with his   
   >>> intentions toward Iraq. Trump, who said a decade ago that Bush should at   
   >>> least have seized Iraq’s oilfields if he was going to go to the trouble   
   >>> of launching an occupation, has been forthright about wanting the U.S.   
   >>> to dispose of Venezuela’s considerable petroleum assets.   
   >>>   
   >>> And while Washington habitually depicts the democratic opposition to   
   >>> dictators in the rosiest of hues, Trump on Saturday gave very short   
   >>> shrift to Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate whom many   
   >>> regime-change enthusiasts would like to see lead a liberal and   
   >>> democratic Venezuela.   
   >>>   
   >>> ‘I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t   
   >>> have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very   
   >>> nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect,’ the president said.   
   >>>   
   >>> Yet somebody will have to run Venezuela, and while Trump has made clear   
   >>> he expects it to be someone who will cooperate with Washington. Right   
   >>> now Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, appears to be in charge,   
   >>> and she’s cut from the same cloth as he was. Her statements since   
   >>> Maduro’s abduction have been defiant. And yet…   
   >>>   
   >>> Venezuela was in no position to resist the U.S. even when Maduro was   
   >>> ensconced in his palace. He knew what was coming, and he – along with   
   >>> the rest of his regime – knew he couldn’t do anything about it.   
   >>> Rodriguez is not in a stronger position than he was. Socialists have   
   >>> held power in Venezuela for nearly 30 years, and ordinary citizens are   
   >>> not only the only ones who have grown frustrated. The military was   
   >>> Maduro’s indispensable support. Do its leaders think there’s a deal to   
   >>> be struck with Trump, who is nothing if not a dealmaker?   
   >>>   
   >>> What that would look like is unclear. A leftist military regime   
   >>> subservient to Washington is difficult to imagine, though Trump is a   
   >>> master of turning unimaginable things into reality. Venezuela has held   
   >>> socialist ‘elections’ all along. Is some hybrid between regime   
   >>> continuity and a transition to real democracy possible? That would be a   
   >>> difficult enough proposition even without the complications that oil and   
   >>> foreign interests represent.   
   >>>   
   >>> But Venezuela’s dilemmas are not so different from those facing many   
   >>> other countries at a time when stronger powers increasingly demand a   
   >>> decisive say in the internal politics of weaker neighbors. Trump seems   
   >>> disinclined to invade Venezuela, or anyone else. Yet if Maduro’s   
   >>> policies toward the U.S. (and China) continue now that Maduro is gone,   
   >>> the country’s next leader will face similar treatment, and sooner or   
   >>> later, as ambitious regime elements or foreign-backed anti-regime   
   >>> movements jostle for power, chaos will be the result.   
   >>>   
   >>> Trump, deal-maker that he is, likes to leave a foreign opponent a way to   
   >>> save face. Delcy Rodriguez, or any other Venezuelan leader, can say   
   >>> whatever she wants in public. What counts with President Trump is what a   
   >>> regime does for America’s interests as he defines them. That’s a lower   
   >>> standard than the one American presidents have applied in the past.   
   >>> George W. Bush never seriously contemplated leaving Baathists in charge   
   >>> of Iraq. Trump is not looking to morally purify the Venezuelan   
   >>> government. He just wants it to do business on his terms.   
   >>>   
   >>> To an idealist, that may sound monstrous, but anyone who looks at the   
   >>> results of idealism in foreign policy, compared to Trump’s successes,   
   >>> might find a moral as well as practical argument for his transactional   
   >>> approach. Venezuelans now have some transactional matters to settle   
   >>> among themselves, as well as with Trump’s America.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> Daniel McCarthy   
   >>   
   >> forgive my naiveté but isn't there something like sovereignty, where,   
   unless   
   >> you're attacked, you can't go into another country, remove their leader,   
      
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