Venezuela

Almost all media commentators seem convinced that Donald Trump’s foreign policy in his second term is a disaster. He is bogged down in Iran, snookered in Ukraine, his tariff agenda has failed and he has alienated his NATO allies. But this consensus has been too hastily formed. Looking at the bigger global picture, Trump’s foreign policy has been a spectacular success. Take the western hemisphere. We have the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” the updated version of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine.

Sizable minorities on both the left and the right want America to intervene in fewer foreign conflicts and to exercise more restraint in foreign policy. In the 2006 midterm elections, antiwar voters contributed to the Republicans’ loss of both houses of Congress. They also helped defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary contest and the Republican nominee, John McCain, at that year’s general election. While McCain styled himself a “maverick,” the label could be more accurately bestowed upon the anti-interventionist Republican Ron Paul, who shocked the GOP establishment by showing that an unstinting critic of the Iraq War could mount an insurgency within the party of George W. Bush.

How might the ayatollahs know an American strike force is coming? Advanced radar technology, perhaps, or a mole somewhere in the Pentagon. Or they could just look at Polymarket. There is currently around $125 million wagered in the largest market predicting when the US will next strike Iran. Given the current odds, traders reckon an attack will take place in the second half of this month. If Nicolás Maduro had checked Polymarket on the night of January 2, he would have seen his odds of losing power spike from around one in ten to 66 percent, hours before Delta Force arrived. One trader has racked up $150,000 in profits in seven months, placing trades on military activity by Israel Polymarket and its competitor Kalshi are prediction markets.

Hugo Chávez’s eyes are everywhere across parts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. In stark black and white, his gaze is stamped onto government buildings, public housing blocks and murals. But if the late socialist president could truly see what has become of the movement he founded, he would likely be dismayed. Most Venezuelans have abandoned chavismo. His protégé Nicolás Maduro – who had led the government since 2013 – has been captured by the US, while many Venezuelans cheered his exit. What remains is a thin but loyal chavista base – and a leadership operating firmly in survival mode.

The US capture of Nicholas Maduro sent a shockwave of fear through the regime in Havana. Heeding the words of Marco Rubio – "If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I'd be concerned at least a little bit" – the communist government put the military on high alert. "The regime carried out military mobilizations," Camila Acosta, a Cuban journalist detained multiple times for her reporting on the regime, told The Spectator. "They are conducting military exercises at their units, keeping the troops confined to their barracks.”But while the regime looks fearfully to the skies for US commandos, ordinary Cubans look to the skies for salvation – they pray that Donald Trump will send Black Hawks to save them.

Operation Absolute Resolve, Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, was a brilliantly executed coup. The audacious raid did not undermine international law, as many European and Democratic politicians have said. But it did expose the weakness and pomposity of the world’s multilateral bodies. Maduro traded oil for loans with China while helping Moscow avoid sanctions. He permitted the terrorist group Hezbollah and Iran to operate and build drones within his jurisdiction. He rigged elections and had opposition activists shot in the street. He allowed and enabled weapons, fentanyl and illegal migrants to flood towards America’s southern border. Yet it wasn’t the International Criminal Court that arrested Maduro to bring him to justice in a New York court.