#venezuela-proximity

#venezuela-proximity

The U.S. mission to seize Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has pushed the concept of regime change back into everyday conversation. "Regime Change in America's Back Yard," declared The New Yorker in a piece that typified the response to the Jan. 3 operation that saw Maduro exchange a compound in Caracas for a jail in Brooklyn. Commentators and politicians have been using the term as shorthand for removing Maduro and ending Venezuela's crisis, as if the two were essentially the same thing.

MAGA is primarily a personality cult, the objectives of which evolve to suit Trump's capricious moods. Yet his pivot to new wars of conquest is not some shocking reversal. The "Donroe Doctrine," as he calls his assertion of regional supremacy-a Trumpian extension of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which established the United States' claim over the Americas in order to keep Europeans out-is in fact consistent with his deepest beliefs. In some ways, it represents the ultimate expression of the world order he hopes to engineer.

The unprecedented US military attack in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife set alarm bells ringing for Iran's leadership. Tehran is one of the closest allies of Maduro, who remained in power in 2024 after massive election rigging and is not recognized by Germany or the European Union as the legitimate president of Venezuela. After his dramatic capture on Saturday, Maduro appeared in a New York courtroom on Monday on narco-terrorism charges.