Venezuela

When the earthquake is big, the porcelain rattles far and wide. And that’s exactly what’s happening now… in Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and even Greenland. The plates are rattling after the Trump Administration’s swift, successful mission to capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was allegedly a major figure in the country’s international drug trafficking. Both husband and wife now face criminal charges in the US. Who else is rattled? Well, the Democratic Party for one, but they are shaking with anger. They say that the raid was illegal and that they should have been consulted before any military action. The Trump Administration responds, quite plausibly, that

No one ever tucked themselves up in bed to read a government document – at least not in the expectation of enjoying it. The standard format is one of hundreds of pages of impenetrable jargon yielding no more than nuggets of significant ideas. The Trump administration has admirably cut through that tendency to produce a National Security Strategy (NSS) that is worth reading: a coherent outlining of America’s strategic intentions on the world stage. Originally composed by Michael Anton, a brilliant mind who is sadly leaving the State Department, the document concisely lays out a Trumpian vision of America’s role in the 21st century. It stands as a corrective to

Venezuela has long served as a launchpad for Iranian operations in South America

There is immense pressure to begin operations, or else back down

The US Navy already has at least 13 surface warships and a nuclear-powered submarine operating in the region

He risks being bounced into an unpopular foreign war

US air strikes destroyed four more boats allegedly carrying narcotics

Now Trump has announced it, is CIA covert action in Venezuela really covert?

Her moral clarity, her endurance, her refusal to yield to bitterness are rare forms of courage

Mexico is one area where the MAGA base and its brain trust seem open to the idea of more aggressive action

The war footing this administration is adopting now toward the cartels is still in its early days, but the die is cast