Saturday’s raid by the US to capture President Nicolas Maduro is quite the reversal for the longtime authoritarian leader of Venezuela.
Maduro came to power after serving the regime of Hugo Chávez. It was Chávez who led the country down a dark path since 2002, transforming a successful country into a poverty-stricken, permanent state of crisis in Latin America.
Maduro replicated Chávez’s authoritarian style, but has tried to navigate between authoritarianism and preserving some semblance of democracy in Venezuela.
In 2018, Maduro claimed to have been reelected, but a number of countries backed Juan Guaidó as the new president after he was selected by the National Assembly. Maduro faced another election in 2024, and once again, the results were disputed at home and abroad.
Maduro’s contested elections laid the groundwork for the raid that removed him from power. The president is not popular locally or globally, and many countries see his presidency as invalid or at least contested. He will not be missed in many places.
On the other hand, the US raid to remove him was unexpected. This isn’t because the US hasn’t performed raids like this before. Some have pointed out the similarities to the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 after the US invasion of Iraq earlier that year.
Another parallel can be seen in Operation Just Cause in 1990 – the US invasion of Panama and the capture of its leader, Manuel Noriega. In addition, the US carried out a clandestine raid in Pakistan in 2011 and killed Osama bin Laden.
The raid to remove Maduro unfolded as this reporter was flying from Israel to the UK. Upon landing, the first images of the raid had been posted. Passengers turning on their phones began to see the news and discuss the White House’s claims that Maduro had been captured.
The Maduro capture and a new kind of US intervention
The removal of Maduro has some similarities to past American operations. However, it also has some key differences.
Unlike Iraq and Panama, the US was not already invading the country when Maduro was captured. It had deployed a massive armada of ships in the Caribbean prior to the raid and had carried out airstrikes on drug smuggling vessels. There were rumors of a potential conflict.
But most people did not predict a precision raid to capture Maduro and bundle him away in the middle of the night. The hunt for bin Laden, for instance, was completely different.
Bin Laden was on the run for more than a decade prior to his discovery. The same was true of cartel leader Pablo Escobar, who was hunted down in 1993 in Colombia. The removal of Maduro took place before he was forced to go on the run.
The fact that Maduro was still standing, threatening the US, is the subject of a White House video post, which shows Maduro giving a speech and boasting that he would remain in Venezuela. “Come get me,” he shouts. The video also includes a quote by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “If you don’t know, now you know.”
It shows Maduro after he was captured and US President Donald Trump striding out to reporters – the camera directed at him from a low angle – as Trump exudes power and confidence. Other social media posts by Trump have tapped into popular culture and American music history, including one in which “Fortunate Son” by the Creedence Clearwater Revival is playing in the background of a video of US helicopters raiding Venezuela.
Commentators pointed out that the song has anti-war themes and was popular during the anti-Vietnam War era.
While the raid on Maduro has been repackaged by the White House to play to a meme-hungry base and showcase American power, there are very real ramifications.
Trump is aware of this and has mentioned that commentators have referred to his revival of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine as the “Donroe” Doctrine. It is now 200 years since US President James Monroe put in place the doctrine that is named after him.
The essence of the doctrine was to keep European powers from meddling in the Western Hemisphere as colonial powers and turn the Caribbean into a kind of American lake. The US in 1823 didn’t have the power to enforce this doctrine. After all, this was only a decade after the War of 1812, when the British had burned Washington.
The resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine is part of Trump’s overall decision to focus US efforts closer to home. The US wants to draw down from some involvement abroad, especially wrapping up the United States Agency for International Development and other humanitarian programs.
However, Trump and his doctrine often have a Janus face in this respect. Trump channels some kind of isolationism, but also tends to do daring foreign policy.
For instance, he pushed to end the Gaza war, and in his first term, he authorized the strike that killed Iran’s IRGC Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani.
The raid on Maduro certainly sends a message to Iran and other countries. Trump has warned Iran against a crackdown on protests.
The US also wants a ceasefire in Ukraine. A Chinese delegation was visiting Maduro on the eve of the US raid. Beijing will see how US airpower brushed aside Venezuelan investments in Russian and Iranian military technology. In essence, Venezuela proved an easy nut to crack in the raid.
Whether the country will now easily fall into line with the US is unclear. Neighboring Colombia, once a close friend of the US, is now hostile. However, the US has seen other countries elect leaders who are friendly, from Honduras to Argentina, El Salvador, and Bolivia. The map of Latin America may be changing.
Days before the US raid, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control had sanctioned 10 individuals and entities in Iran and Venezuela for trading drones and missile-related military hardware. The US has also carried out airstrikes on ISIS in Syria and Nigeria.
The US president is a man of action, as Rubio has characterized him. “If you don’t know, now you know.” Now Maduro knows. Iran, Russia, China, and other countries will be watching.