ANALYSIS: After Maduro, the U.S. on the Brink of a Precedent

Two Hours That Shifted a Border

The Night Washington Stopped Making Threats

On January 3, 2026, the United States did not add another sanction to the pile. It struck in Venezuela, captured Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, and then transferred them to New York. Secretary of State Marco Rubio summed up the U.S. presence on the ground in a timeframe almost obscene in its brevity: about two hours.

Two hours to enter a sovereign country, seize its contested leader, and entrust its political future to the power that had just struck. This is no ordinary police operation. Nor is it a classic occupation. It is something more modern, more polished in appearance, and harder to pigeonhole into our old categories.

The fait accompli as a doctrine

Washington presented the action as the arrest of an indicted fugitive, facilitated by the military. Caracas called it an armed attack and a kidnapping. Between these two accounts lies one overwhelming fact: a foreign force crossed the border, neutralized defenses, and took the presidential couple to the U.S. judicial system.

One may detest Maduro, his authoritarianism, the repression, and the disaster he has inflicted on his country. One may also applaud the end of his impunity. But a serious democracy does not measure only the worth of the target. It measures the precedent set by the method.

The precedent, for its part, never leaves by helicopter.

Maduro was not innocent simply because he was captured

A tyrant does not magically become a martyr

Nicolás Maduro did not win the 2024 election simply because a U.S. operation eventually seized him. The available results indicated a victory for opposition candidate Edmundo González, following the disqualification of María Corina Machado. The regime responded with a lockdown, exile, imprisonment, and forced continuity.

We must hold both truths together: Maduro stifled the will of the people, yet that does not grant Washington an unlimited right to intervene. The first truth explains why so many Venezuelans dreamed of his downfall. The second determines the world into which that downfall leads us.

An indictment is not a conviction

Maduro and Flores were transferred to New York to face charges of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and weapons offenses. These are charges. No verdict has been rendered. Even when a defendant has ruled through fear, the rule of law begins precisely where the crowd would like it to end.

The congressional report further emphasizes that the 2025 indictment did not identify him as the leader of the Cartel of the Suns. This nuance does not exonerate anyone. It merely prevents political rhetoric from turning into a criminal judgment before the hearing.

Justice loses when it dons the mask of vengeance.

Military precision does not justify the decision

A limited strike, not all-out war

Image analysis conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies describes a targeted operation focused on a limited set of sites. Defenses, headquarters, and infrastructure remained intact. More than 200 special forces personnel reportedly participated in the capture, with no reported U.S. fatalities.

Tactical restraint matters: it means that planners sought to achieve the objective, not annihilation, and that they had the capacity to strike much harder. To refuse to acknowledge this discipline would be to replace analysis with knee-jerk reaction. A limited operation is not the same as a campaign of destruction.

The clarity of maps, the chaos of reality

But a satellite image doesn’t hear anyone. The CSIS estimated approximately 75 deaths, including 32 Cuban guards, and identified two civilians among the known victims. This toll remained incomplete. The UN reported Venezuelan claims of civilian and military deaths without providing a verified total.

This uncertainty must remain visible. It precludes both inflated figures and miraculously “clean” casualty counts. A strike may be surgical in its design yet leave lives on the ground—lives that no one asked to become the price of a new hemispheric doctrine.

Precision never eliminates bloodshed.

The word “police” worn by soldiers

The phrase that attempts to shut down the debate

At the UN, the United States rejected the word “war.” In Washington, Rubio argued that this was neither an invasion nor a prolonged military operation, but an arrest. The choice of words is clever: if it is merely a police matter, the question of authorization for war seems to lose its purpose.

Yet when an arrest requires airstrikes, special forces, and the armed incursion into another state, the dictionary itself becomes a battlefield. The executive branch cannot make the military nature of an act disappear simply by giving it a more convenient name.

The Noriega Precedent and the Temptation to Copy and Paste

The administration cited the 1989 arrest of Manuel Noriega. The comparison has obvious political weight: a leader accused of drug trafficking, captured, and then tried in the United States. But a historical precedent is not a blanket authorization. It is often an old scar that each generation reinterprets according to its own interests.

If Noriega becomes the universal template, any leader accused by Washington could be lumped into the same category. Yet international stability rests precisely on the idea that the power to accuse does not automatically confer the power to abduct.

A precedent is not an eternal mandate.

Congress Watches as the Executive Branch Takes Action

A war without the word “war”

On January 8, the Senate introduced a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities in Venezuela. The very need for this vote reveals the crux of the matter. If no hostilities existed, why invoke war powers? If they did exist, why hadn’t Congress authorized the action before it overthrew a country’s government?

The institutional danger lies not only in what Trump did in Venezuela; it lies in what a future president will claim to be able to do elsewhere. An executive branch learns quickly. Every legislative silence becomes a loophole. Every operational success becomes an argument. Every hated enemy becomes the exception that sets the precedent.

Efficiency as a Constitutional Anesthetic

The capture was swift. The target became physically available to U.S. justice. This efficiency is appealing because it delivers results where diplomacy had failed. But the U.S. Constitution never promised that the slowness of checks and balances would be pleasant.

It promised something else: that the decision to project force would not rest with the will of a single man. Supporting Trump when his firmness serves the West does not obligate me to give him a blank check. On the contrary. Unlimited loyalty is the laziest form of abandonment.

A military success can be a constitutional failure.

The United Nations Charter is not merely decorative

A Divided Chamber, an Intact Rule

The Security Council met on January 5 amid a clear divide. The United States spoke of combating transnational crime. Venezuela denounced an act of aggression. Brazil believed an unacceptable line had been crossed. Mexico rejected the imposed regime change. Argentina and Paraguay, however, saw it as a step toward democracy.

This diplomatic division does not undermine the central principle: states are not supposed to use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state. Legal exceptions do exist. They must be demonstrated, not merely proclaimed after the planes have returned.

The mirror Beijing and Moscow were waiting for

Russia and China seized the opportunity to accuse Washington of aggression and selective application of the law. Their outrage is self-serving. Moscow, the aggressor against Ukraine, has no credible lessons to teach on sovereignty. Beijing dreams of a world where regional power becomes a license to act.

This is precisely why the West must hold itself to higher standards. Every American ambiguity will tomorrow become a sentence in a Russian press release, a Chinese analogy about Taiwan, or a piece of propaganda offered free of charge to regimes that seek to conflate rules with power.

Our enemies also thrive on our contradictions.

“Our hemisphere”: four words that carry the weight of a continent

The “Backyard” Doctrine

The White House put it bluntly: “our hemisphere.” Rubio said that Washington would tolerate neither traffickers, nor an Iranian presence, nor Hezbollah, nor hostile powers capable of exploiting the region’s resources. Strategically, the logic is clear. The United States refuses to allow an adversary to establish a foothold near its borders.

But Latin America is not a backyard, and its peoples are not strategic pawns to be moved around according to Washington’s needs. Security rhetoric may identify a real threat. It may also reawaken a century of interventions, coups, and suspended sovereignty.

Legitimate Security, Tempting Domination

It would be naïve to deny the existence of Iranian networks, drug trafficking routes, or Moscow’s and Beijing’s interest in Venezuela. Great powers exploit vulnerabilities. Trump is right to treat the hemisphere as a vital strategic space rather than as a distant backdrop.

The question is the method. Defending a neighborhood against authoritarian control does not require becoming its owner. A strong alliance attracts, protects, sanctions, and builds. An empire decides, takes, and then explains why the order it established was worth the freedom sacrificed.

Protection does not grant the right to ownership.

Oil Enters the Room

The word no one can take back

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Trump has spoken of U.S. control over the industry, of sanctioned oil being returned to the United States, and of rebuilding the sector. Rubio has promised to maintain an “oil quarantine” until Caracas meets U.S. demands.

As soon as the seizing power also announces that it will control the oil, democratic liberation is cast in a shadow that cannot be erased. Even if the security objective is sincere. Even if the Venezuelan industry has been ravaged by corruption, mismanagement, and sanctions.

A resource does not vote

Oil can finance a transition. It can also finance a new form of dependence. It all depends on who controls the revenues, according to what rules, for how long, with what degree of Venezuelan oversight, and with what level of transparency. Yet the initial announcements did not address these questions.

The Venezuelan people did not have to wait for Maduro’s downfall to discover that their resources could enrich a regime rather than improve their lives. Replacing internal confiscation with external control would not be a rebirth. It would be a change of hands on the same handle.

Oil must not become the new president.

The void bears the name of Delcy Rodríguez

Continuity After the Takeover

After Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez served as interim president. She was at the heart of the previous regime and remained subject to U.S. sanctions. Trump said she seemed willing to do what Washington deemed necessary, while warning her of a very high price if she refused to cooperate.

Herein lies the stark contradiction: an operation marketed as a democratic opening relies first and foremost on a central figure of the very system it claims to transcend. This choice may be tactical, intended to prevent the collapse of the state. It may also trap the transition in a merely repainted version of criminal continuity.

The Opposition Left Out in the Cold

Edmundo González, whom the 2024 results placed ahead of Maduro, remained in exile. María Corina Machado, barred from running and then forced to leave the country, supported the U.S. action. Yet Trump publicly questioned her ability to govern ahead of an announced meeting with her.

A democracy is not built simply by removing the one who stole the election. It begins when those who won regain a political voice, when prisoners are released, when institutions stop obeying fear, and when the political calendar once again belongs to the citizens.

Removing the jailer does not automatically open the door.

A transition without a plan is an empty promise

“We will lead”

Trump declared that the United States would lead Venezuela until a transition takes place. The statement goes beyond the two-hour operation. It establishes an open-ended responsibility, without a clearly designated transitional authority, without an electoral timeline, without a published institutional framework, and without a clear limit on U.S. influence.

One cannot promise to lead a country without answering the simplest question: by what right, with whom, and until when? Firmness turns to vertigo when there is no exit strategy yet. American history knows all too well the pattern of swift victories followed by years spent searching for a way out.

Three Futures, None Guaranteed

The congressional report outlined several possible trajectories: criminalized continuity, a managed transition, power struggles, clashes, and chaos calling for further intervention. None had yet become reality. This diversity of possibilities is not a technical footnote. It is the heart of the danger.

Every armed actor protects their interests. Every dignitary calculates their survival. Every opponent weighs the risk of returning. And every Venezuelan family must carry on while the powerful debate the word “transition” as if it were a bridge already built.

The vacuum never politely waits for democracy.

Civilians Pay the Price Before Lawyers Do

A Still Incomplete Death Toll

The first few hours did not yield a consolidated death toll. Venezuela reported civilian and military deaths. The CSIS put forward an estimate of approximately 75 deaths and identified two civilians, while emphasizing the limitations of the available images and information. This margin of uncertainty precludes any comfortable certainty.

Two identified civilians are not mere details in a successful operation; they are two lives that geopolitics cannot repay. The other figures must be verified, corrected, and named. Respect for the dead begins with refusing to use them as props in a narrative.

A brief war has a long-lasting impact

Even without a permanent occupation, the pressure continues: seizures of sanctioned vessels, targeting of ships accused of transporting drugs, an oil embargo, and the threat of “other measures.” The two-hour operation is thus part of a much longer-term strategy.

This strategy affects the elites, but it also permeates everyday life. When oil is blocked, when the state contracts, when those in power respond with greater repression, the first to be affected are never those who issue the ultimatums.

Military brevity can lead to prolonged civilian suffering.

Trump was right about one thing

Patience was no longer a strategy

The sanctions imposed during Trump’s first term had not brought about a change in power. Nor had the Biden administration’s negotiated approach. Maduro had survived the statements, the ultimatums, the isolation, and the elections—which he had rendered meaningless. Continuing in exactly the same way was not a policy. It was a habit.

Trump understood that Maduro’s impunity also rested on the belief that no one would follow through on the threat. By shattering that belief, he created real leverage. Political prisoners, the opposition, and the security apparatus no longer view the balance of power in the same way.

Courage does not excuse recklessness

Recognizing this result does not require accepting everything else. A Western power can make a courageous decision and still be wrong about the law, the aftermath, oil, or the concentration of executive power. Mature support is not a continuous ovation. It is a continuous demand.

I prefer a president who sees the threat to one who denies it. But I refuse to let an accurate assessment become a moral shield. If Trump wants this operation to serve freedom rather than mere domination, he must be accountable to Congress and to the Venezuelan people.

Force is only worth what it makes possible.

The West cannot become what it is fighting against

The Test of Consistency

We support Ukraine because a great power has no right to reshape its neighbor’s destiny by force. We defend Taiwan because its people must not become the pawns of imperial calculations. These principles cannot stop at the gates of Latin America.

If sovereignty protects only the allies we favor, it is no longer a rule; it becomes a privilege doled out by the strongest. This inconsistency weakens every Western argument at the very moment when the democratic order is under pressure from authoritarian regimes.

A distinction must be made

Maduro is not Zelensky. Venezuela in 2026 is not Ukraine in 2022. The facts, the regimes, the mandates, and the alliances differ profoundly. But the West’s moral distinction cannot depend solely on the odious nature of the one who falls.

It must operate within the limits accepted by those who strike: parliamentary oversight, public objectives, protection of civilians, a Venezuelan transition, transparent funding, and an actual withdrawal once the stated mission is complete.

Democracy is recognized by its checks and balances.

What Washington Must Now Prove

Written limits, not promises

The administration must specify exactly what it expects from the interim government, what indicators will signal a transition, what U.S. forces may still be deployed, what legal authority governs them, and how Congress will be consulted. Ambiguity protects maneuverability. It exposes democracy.

A sound doctrine does not rest on trust in a president, but on rules strong enough to survive a president we might fear. That is the simplest test. We must imagine the same power in the hands of the adversary, then decide whether it remains acceptable.

Power Returned to the Venezuelan People

Oil revenues must fund Venezuela under transparent oversight. The opposition must participate without being reduced to a mere figurehead. Prisoners must be released. Security forces must be subject to civilian authority. And the next election must belong to the voters, not to the military victor of January.

This agenda is not a sign of weakness. It is the only way to transform power into legitimate order. Without it, the United States will have proven that it can seize a man. It will not have proven that it can help a people reclaim their country.

Victory begins when power retreats.

After Maduro, the real judgment begins

An arrest does not settle anything

Maduro must answer the charges in court, with the rights that his own regime has so often denied. Venezuela must emerge from authoritarianism without falling into foreign administration. Trump must defend his actions before the institutions he failed to consult before striking.

January 3 did not end Venezuela’s story; it merely removed the man behind whom everyone else could hide their responsibility. From now on, every delay will have a name. Every prison closed will have someone held accountable. Every barrel of oil diverted will contradict the promise of liberation.

Two hours, then years

Two hours. That’s the refrain Washington loves because it speaks of control, speed, and daring. But a country cannot be mended in the time it takes to carry out a raid. Destroyed trust does not return with the aircraft bringing the soldiers home.

I do not mourn Maduro’s political downfall. I fear a world where his authoritarian nature alone would be enough to erase all boundaries. American power is indispensable when it protects the West. It becomes dangerous when it considers itself the West all on its own.

Who will return Venezuela to the Venezuelans?

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist

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I am not a journalist, but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analyzing the geopolitical, economic, and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work consists of dissecting political strategies, understanding global economic trends, contextualizing the decisions of international actors, and offering analytical perspectives on the transformations that are redefining our societies.

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ANALYSIS: After Maduro, the U.S. on the Brink of a Precedent