There’s a lot to worry any American who look at the US military buildup around Venezuela and wonder about a redux of the “forever wars” that President Donald Trump promised to end.
There’s a lot to worry any American who look at the US military buildup around Venezuela andwonder about a reduxof the “forever wars” that President Donald Trump promised to end.
While on Monday Trump was talking about potential negotiations with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the US government continues toamass Navy powerin the Caribbean.
The Navy’s most lethal combat platform, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, arrived in the region for exercises, raising the total number of deployed US military personnel to roughly 15,000.
The State Department plans to label a Venezuelan cartel with ties to Maduro as a terrorist organization, according to an announcement Sunday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
But there are real questions about the intelligence by which the US is striking at drug boats. Trump likes to say that destroying drug boats directly saves American lives, but there’s not a lot of evidence that the boats were headed to the US. And the Trump administration, rather than arresting those operating the boats and putting them on trial, is blowing them out of the water.
TheWall Street Journal reportedon a classified legal memo the administration says enables it to strike alleged drug boats with military force refers to the drug fentanyl as a potential chemical weapon. It doesn’t take much to hear echoes of the flawed allegations about Saddam Hussein and Weapons of Mass Destruction before the US invaded Iraq.
There are some important differences between how recent presidents pursued military action compared to Trump.
Days after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, lawmakers approved an authorization for the use of military force to find perpetrators of those attacks and to fight terrorists. Onlyone lawmaker,then-Rep. Barbara Lee of California, voted against the measure.
A year later, when President George W. Bush wanted to use the momentum for fighting terrorism to invade Iraq, Congress signed off, approving an Iraq war resolution in October 2002, with strong bipartisan support.
Today, there’s no talk by the Trump administration of asking Congress for approval. The Trump administration has told lawmakers it doesn’t think it needs to go to Congress to strike drug boats and that it is not bound by the War Powers Act. Those actions don’t amount to hostilities, a senior Trump Department of Justice official told House and Senate lawmakers,according to a CNN report.
And it’s also important to note that Obama, Trump and Biden all launchedair strikes against Syriawithout seeking congressional approval.
Before lawmakers voted on the Iraq war resolution, President George W. Bush laid out his argument to the country in an address to a joint session of Congress.
Months later, in February of 2003, the Bush administration tried to build an international coalition in a presentation at the UN. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence, which we now know was flawed, that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and aiding terrorists. It’s a scar on Powell’s legacy. Trump has said he opposed the war at the time, but he was not vocal about it.
He has not made a concerted effort to sell Americans on his alleged drug boat strikes and the military buildup in the Caribbean.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who refers to himself as secretary of war, invoked the war on terrorism as he referred to actions against the alleged drug boast in asocial media postlast month.
“The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them,” Hegseth wrote.
When President Barack Obama launched an air campaign against Libya in 2011, in part to dislodge Moammar Gadhafi, he did not seek congressional approval. But the US did get a unanimous vote from the UN Security Council approving ano-fly zone,andObama laid out his planin an address to the nation.
That air campaign would come to haunt Obama, who referred to it as his “worst mistake” because he did not plan for the chaotic aftermath of the US strikes.
Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser turned fierce critic, is also an advocate for a hawkish foreign policy.
Appearing on CNN Monday, he said there are reasons for the US to act against Venezuela, but Trump has done a poor job of explaining them.
“If it’s simply about illegal narcotics, that’s one thing. But it seems to be about overthrowing Maduro,” Bolton said.
During an appearance with FIFA officials at the White House on Monday, Trump barely mentioned the issue of drugs, suggesting instead that his beef with Venezuela had to do with Maduro emptying prisons and sending migrants to the US. It’s a favorite complaint of Trump, but there’sno evidence to supportit, as CNN’s Daniel Dale has noted repeatedly.
Bringing the USS Gerald Ford to the region is a real statement.
“Trump has now put the gun on the table,” Bolton said. “The question is, is he going to use it or not?”
Bolton said there are some signs Trump may not be serious about military action inside Venezuela.
First, he argued there’s no indication the US is aligning itself with the Maduro opposition inside Venezuela — people who would be needed in the event of regime change.
“They’re not in a position where they can say no to Trump,” he said. “But it’s not at all clear that they think this is the right thing to do.”
The other thing Bolton doesn’t see is an active campaign to bring other countries in the region on board. During Trump’s first term, there was an effort to create a coalition of support, the so-called Lima Group.
“There’s no Lima Group 2.0, which shows the risks, I think, for the U.S. to proceed without more support in the hemisphere,” Bolton said.
Retired Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, who was a spokesman for the Bush administration in Iraq, said on CNN Monday that Trump would face “great reluctance” among Americans for another conflict in a foreign land.
“If there’s an internal regime change by the people of Venezuela, that’s a completely different can of worms, but a United States regime change, I think that probably is a last option for this administration to conduct,” Kimmitt said.
Polling backs that up. Less than a third of Americans said ina recent Reuters-Ipsos pollthat they support the strikes against the alleged drug boats.
That probably means the administration has so far failed to convince Americans that drug trafficking is on par with ideological terrorism. It could take an even more convincing sales pitch to convince Americans the US military should be involved with regime change in Venezuela if that’s the path Trump ends up pursuing.