Trump's Venezuelan invasion a 'risky political gambit': retired general

03 January

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One en route to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to attend a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war, amid a U.S.-brokered prisoner-hostage swap and ceasefire deal. (REUTERS)

Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey warned that regime change is risky business — even for a competent president.

President Donald Trump announced in a social media post early Saturday morning that the United States has carried out a “large scale strike” on Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and flying them out of the country. The Washington Post reports “explosions were heard and smoke could be seen rising in multiple locations across Caracas in the early morning, including at key military facilities, and aircraft were seen flying over the Venezuelan capital.”

McCaffrey called the military operation “audacious and complex and successful” in that the U.S. successfully seized the head of state and his wife in the middle of a city of 3 million people and flew them out.”

He added that Maduro was already an indicted drug cartel member along with 14 of his senior associates, but he reasoned there was no indication the nation was on its way to democracy.

“There’s no question he was a repressive despot,” McCaffrey said. “Seven million Venezuelans have walked out of the country, literally starving, even though it’s one of the most wealthy nations on the planet in terms of resources. Did they have to kill a bunch of Cuban intel guys who undoubtedly were guarding Maduro? More to come. But the larger question is … the president of Venezuela now is Vice President [Delcy] Rodríguez. The minister of defense has been seen in public. The minister of the interior has been seen in public, but there’s no indication yet of some wholescale march to democracy.”

“That’s not to say that the CIA may not indeed be now in the process of organizing the Venezuelan armed forces to turn against a regime of political leadership. I imagine they’re in there with bribery and offers and potential rewards in the next government so it may turn out well, but no one knows how this is gonna end up. So, it’s a very risky political gambit the president has embarked on.”

Republicans like Trump have experience with failed regime change, most notably the failed nation building of Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the U.S. War on Terror initiated by former president George W. Bush. That 20-year campaign has so far cost he U.S. upwards of $8 trillion, according to researchers at Brown University.

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