The Venezuela invasion
is part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful military
interventions that has made America the most destabilizing nation on
Earth.
By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.
President Donald Trump announced the operation triumphantly, stating that the US would temporarily “run” Venezuela and be “very strongly involved” in its oil industry again, given the nation’s vast reserves of over 303 billion barrels—the largest in the world. This blatant act of aggression, justified vaguely as a response to “narco-terrorism,” reveals the US once again as the world’s most dangerous rogue state, a nation that habitually violates international law, invades sovereign countries for strategic and economic gain, and destabilizes the world while preaching a “rules-based order” for all other nations.
The American military operation constitutes clear violations of multiple pillars of international law. It directly contravenes Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The airstrikes on Venezuelan soil and the forcible removal of a sitting head of state lack UN Security Council authorization and do not meet the strict criteria for self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter, as no imminent armed attack on the US was evident. Prominent legal experts, including Geoffrey Robertson—a former president of the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone—have called it a “crime of aggression“—the planning and execution of unlawful force, deemed the “supreme international crime” since the Nuremberg trials. Similarly, Chatham House analysts and others describe it as an “unlawful use of force” without any genuine basis in self-defence or UN resolution.
The capture of Maduro and Trump’s explicit intentions to control Venezuela’s oil resources further breach principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention, enshrined in international law and the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law. Preceding actions, such as strikes on Venezuelan vessels in international waters and seizures of oil tankers, raise concerns under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), involving unauthorized lethal force and extraterritorial actions without jurisdiction.
Global condemnation has been swift. The UN Secretary-General expressed deep alarm, stating that the action sets a “dangerous precedent“ and that “international law hasn’t been respected.” Countries including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, France, and Spain denounced the strikes as flagrant violations of sovereignty and the UN Charter. Even allies expressed concern, while enforcement remains blocked by the US veto in the Security Council.
This aggression is indistinguishable from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both involve unilateral military force against a sovereign neighbour, justified by contrived pretexts—Russia’s claims of “denazification” and threats, versus US allegations of drug trafficking without proof of imminent harm—and both aim at regime change with an underlying focus on natural resources or strategic interests.
The US vociferously condemned Russia for breaching the UN Charter and sovereignty principles, imposing sanctions and rallying global support. Yet now, America commits the same acts in Venezuela. If China were to launch a similar operation in Taiwan, citing “security threats” from US arms sales or alliances, the United States and its allies would thunderously decry violations of international law and the rules-based order. This glaring double standard exposes US disregard for international law, and its actions for what they are—a license for imperialism, where the rules bind everyone except the US and its allies.
The Venezuela invasion is not an outlier but part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful interventions that has made America the most destabilizing force in the world. Under President Dwight Eisenhower the CIA tried to pressure Egyptian King Farouk I into embracing political reforms favourable to American interests, and when he resisted they worked with disaffected members of the Egyptian military to overthrow him in a 1952 coup. In 1953 the CIA was also integral to helping install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of as Shah of Iran, after removing the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalized Iran’s oil resources.Under President Lyndon Johnson, the US
massively escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War by orchestrating the Gulf of Tonkin Incident on August 2, 1964 to justify deeper American involvement. For the next decade the US bombed and invaded North Vietnam without UN approval, resulting in over a million Vietnamese dead, along with hundreds of thousands more in Laos and Cambodia. The devastation from the war in North and South Vietnam was widespread and now more than 50 years later the nation is still recovering, and has yet to heal.
George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama was condemned by the UN General Assembly as a violation of the UN Charter, with not a single American government official being held legally accountable for American crimes. George W. Bush initiated illegal wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), causing over one million deaths through violence and ensuing chaos and the destruction of civil society infrastructure. American’s “War on Terror” saw the US also violate the sovereignty of Somalia and Yemen, all without proper Security Council authorization. In total it is estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have resulted in the death of more than 4.5 million Arabs and Muslims.
Barack Obama perpetuated these conflicts while adding unilateral interventions in Libya (2011, transforming a stable state into a failed one rife with slave markets and militias), and authorized airstrikes in Syria. Joe Biden maintained ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. And in his two administrations Donald Trump ordered strikes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, frequently bypassing congressional oversight. Now, in 2026, Venezuela becomes the latest victim of America’s criminal foreign policy where any nation that doesn’t bow to US demands becomes a target of economic warfare or military assault.
This history includes dozens of coups and regime changes since 1945—from the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, to the 1954 Guatemala coup protecting United Fruit Company interests (sparking a civil war killing 200,000), to the 1973 coup in Chile which overthrew Salvador Allende, and installed Augusto Pinochet as dictator. The early 20th-century “Banana Wars” in Central America also installed regimes compliant with America’s agenda, earning the derogatory term “banana republics.” Additionally, with over 750 military bases in 80 countries—far exceeding any historical empire—the US sustains “forever wars” that have killed 13-23 million deaths in at least 28 nations, while sanctions have crippled economies in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Every such violation and illegal act by the US breeds instability. The Iraq invasion birthed ISIS, Libya’s intervention fragmented the region and empowered warlords, Afghanistan’s occupation ultimately revived the Taliban. In the Global South, America’s insatiable hunger for resources—oil in the Middle East, minerals in Africa and Latin America—sacrifices national sovereignty and violates the UN Charter repeatedly, fuelling resentment, causing refugee crises, and energizing terrorism. Venezuela’s enormous oil wealth makes it a prime target, and Trump’s open declarations of control echo the fabricated pretexts for Iraq in 2003, where lies about weapons of mass destruction masked desires for oil dominance.
The prelude to this invasion involved months of escalation—a massive US military buildup in the Caribbean with 15,000 personnel and 150 aircraft, strikes on over 35 vessels killing at least 115 people, and seizures of oil tankers—actions already criticized as potential acts of aggression and violations of maritime law. This campaign, framed as an anti-narcotics operation but escalating to direct attacks on Venezuelan soil, underscores how the US manipulates domestic legal pretexts to bypass international norms, setting precedents that weaken the global order.
Despite Maduro’s authoritarian flaws and contested elections, Venezuela under the Chavismo ideology achieved remarkable social gains, including over 95% literacy rates and expanded healthcare access for millions lifted from poverty. Regime change here primarily opens doors for US firms like ExxonMobil and Chevron to reclaim assets nationalized years ago, prioritizing corporate interests over genuine democratic or humanitarian concerns.
Under Trump, this imperial recklessness reaches alarming heights, reviving the hegemonic shadow of the Monroe Doctrine over Central and South America. Each US transgression erodes the post-World War Two international order, encouraging lawlessness where power trumps principle. The Venezuela crisis risks wider regional conflict, akin to the sectarian spillover from Iraq, potentially drawing in allies of Venezuela like Russia or China.
The human cost is already emerging with reports of civilian and military casualties in Caracas, power outages, and fears of refugee influxes prompting border mobilizations in Colombia. This deliberate and unnecessary violence, inflicted without congressional authorization or broad international support, highlights America’s overreach alongside global illegality.
For genuine global stability, the world must work to dismantle the US empire by shutting down overseas military bases, end the sale of arms to rights abusers, lift sanctions that punish civilians, and restrain the military-industrial complex profiting from perpetual conflict. The Global South watches apprehensively, aware that any resource-rich nation defying Washington could be next in line. Until the US confronts its history of predation disguised as liberation, it remains the paramount threat to world peace—a rogue state perpetuating cycles of violence that endangers the world.
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
On January 3, 2026, mere days into the new year, the United States launched a shocking military assault on Venezuela
code named “Operation Absolute Resolve.” American forces conducted
airstrikes on key sites in Caracas and surrounding areas, including
military bases like Fort Tiuna and La Carlota airbase, before special
operations teams—reportedly including Delta Force—captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, extracting them and confining them aboard the USS Iwo Jima.
President Donald Trump announced the operation triumphantly, stating that the US would temporarily “run” Venezuela and be “very strongly involved” in its oil industry again, given the nation’s vast reserves of over 303 billion barrels—the largest in the world. This blatant act of aggression, justified vaguely as a response to “narco-terrorism,” reveals the US once again as the world’s most dangerous rogue state, a nation that habitually violates international law, invades sovereign countries for strategic and economic gain, and destabilizes the world while preaching a “rules-based order” for all other nations.
The American military operation constitutes clear violations of multiple pillars of international law. It directly contravenes Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The airstrikes on Venezuelan soil and the forcible removal of a sitting head of state lack UN Security Council authorization and do not meet the strict criteria for self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter, as no imminent armed attack on the US was evident. Prominent legal experts, including Geoffrey Robertson—a former president of the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone—have called it a “crime of aggression“—the planning and execution of unlawful force, deemed the “supreme international crime” since the Nuremberg trials. Similarly, Chatham House analysts and others describe it as an “unlawful use of force” without any genuine basis in self-defence or UN resolution.
The capture of Maduro and Trump’s explicit intentions to control Venezuela’s oil resources further breach principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention, enshrined in international law and the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law. Preceding actions, such as strikes on Venezuelan vessels in international waters and seizures of oil tankers, raise concerns under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), involving unauthorized lethal force and extraterritorial actions without jurisdiction.
Global condemnation has been swift. The UN Secretary-General expressed deep alarm, stating that the action sets a “dangerous precedent“ and that “international law hasn’t been respected.” Countries including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, France, and Spain denounced the strikes as flagrant violations of sovereignty and the UN Charter. Even allies expressed concern, while enforcement remains blocked by the US veto in the Security Council.
This aggression is indistinguishable from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both involve unilateral military force against a sovereign neighbour, justified by contrived pretexts—Russia’s claims of “denazification” and threats, versus US allegations of drug trafficking without proof of imminent harm—and both aim at regime change with an underlying focus on natural resources or strategic interests.
The US vociferously condemned Russia for breaching the UN Charter and sovereignty principles, imposing sanctions and rallying global support. Yet now, America commits the same acts in Venezuela. If China were to launch a similar operation in Taiwan, citing “security threats” from US arms sales or alliances, the United States and its allies would thunderously decry violations of international law and the rules-based order. This glaring double standard exposes US disregard for international law, and its actions for what they are—a license for imperialism, where the rules bind everyone except the US and its allies.
The Venezuela invasion is not an outlier but part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful interventions that has made America the most destabilizing force in the world. Under President Dwight Eisenhower the CIA tried to pressure Egyptian King Farouk I into embracing political reforms favourable to American interests, and when he resisted they worked with disaffected members of the Egyptian military to overthrow him in a 1952 coup. In 1953 the CIA was also integral to helping install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of as Shah of Iran, after removing the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalized Iran’s oil resources.Under President Lyndon Johnson, the US
massively escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War by orchestrating the Gulf of Tonkin Incident on August 2, 1964 to justify deeper American involvement. For the next decade the US bombed and invaded North Vietnam without UN approval, resulting in over a million Vietnamese dead, along with hundreds of thousands more in Laos and Cambodia. The devastation from the war in North and South Vietnam was widespread and now more than 50 years later the nation is still recovering, and has yet to heal.
George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama was condemned by the UN General Assembly as a violation of the UN Charter, with not a single American government official being held legally accountable for American crimes. George W. Bush initiated illegal wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), causing over one million deaths through violence and ensuing chaos and the destruction of civil society infrastructure. American’s “War on Terror” saw the US also violate the sovereignty of Somalia and Yemen, all without proper Security Council authorization. In total it is estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have resulted in the death of more than 4.5 million Arabs and Muslims.
Barack Obama perpetuated these conflicts while adding unilateral interventions in Libya (2011, transforming a stable state into a failed one rife with slave markets and militias), and authorized airstrikes in Syria. Joe Biden maintained ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. And in his two administrations Donald Trump ordered strikes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, frequently bypassing congressional oversight. Now, in 2026, Venezuela becomes the latest victim of America’s criminal foreign policy where any nation that doesn’t bow to US demands becomes a target of economic warfare or military assault.
This history includes dozens of coups and regime changes since 1945—from the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, to the 1954 Guatemala coup protecting United Fruit Company interests (sparking a civil war killing 200,000), to the 1973 coup in Chile which overthrew Salvador Allende, and installed Augusto Pinochet as dictator. The early 20th-century “Banana Wars” in Central America also installed regimes compliant with America’s agenda, earning the derogatory term “banana republics.” Additionally, with over 750 military bases in 80 countries—far exceeding any historical empire—the US sustains “forever wars” that have killed 13-23 million deaths in at least 28 nations, while sanctions have crippled economies in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Every such violation and illegal act by the US breeds instability. The Iraq invasion birthed ISIS, Libya’s intervention fragmented the region and empowered warlords, Afghanistan’s occupation ultimately revived the Taliban. In the Global South, America’s insatiable hunger for resources—oil in the Middle East, minerals in Africa and Latin America—sacrifices national sovereignty and violates the UN Charter repeatedly, fuelling resentment, causing refugee crises, and energizing terrorism. Venezuela’s enormous oil wealth makes it a prime target, and Trump’s open declarations of control echo the fabricated pretexts for Iraq in 2003, where lies about weapons of mass destruction masked desires for oil dominance.
The prelude to this invasion involved months of escalation—a massive US military buildup in the Caribbean with 15,000 personnel and 150 aircraft, strikes on over 35 vessels killing at least 115 people, and seizures of oil tankers—actions already criticized as potential acts of aggression and violations of maritime law. This campaign, framed as an anti-narcotics operation but escalating to direct attacks on Venezuelan soil, underscores how the US manipulates domestic legal pretexts to bypass international norms, setting precedents that weaken the global order.
Despite Maduro’s authoritarian flaws and contested elections, Venezuela under the Chavismo ideology achieved remarkable social gains, including over 95% literacy rates and expanded healthcare access for millions lifted from poverty. Regime change here primarily opens doors for US firms like ExxonMobil and Chevron to reclaim assets nationalized years ago, prioritizing corporate interests over genuine democratic or humanitarian concerns.
Under Trump, this imperial recklessness reaches alarming heights, reviving the hegemonic shadow of the Monroe Doctrine over Central and South America. Each US transgression erodes the post-World War Two international order, encouraging lawlessness where power trumps principle. The Venezuela crisis risks wider regional conflict, akin to the sectarian spillover from Iraq, potentially drawing in allies of Venezuela like Russia or China.
The human cost is already emerging with reports of civilian and military casualties in Caracas, power outages, and fears of refugee influxes prompting border mobilizations in Colombia. This deliberate and unnecessary violence, inflicted without congressional authorization or broad international support, highlights America’s overreach alongside global illegality.
For genuine global stability, the world must work to dismantle the US empire by shutting down overseas military bases, end the sale of arms to rights abusers, lift sanctions that punish civilians, and restrain the military-industrial complex profiting from perpetual conflict. The Global South watches apprehensively, aware that any resource-rich nation defying Washington could be next in line. Until the US confronts its history of predation disguised as liberation, it remains the paramount threat to world peace—a rogue state perpetuating cycles of violence that endangers the world.
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
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