{"id":388931,"date":"2026-01-05T10:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/388931\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T10:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:11:13","slug":"trumps-coup-in-venezuela-didnt-just-break-the-rules-it-showed-there-arent-any-well-all-regret-that-nesrine-malik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/388931\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s coup in Venezuela didn\u2019t just break the rules \u2013 it showed there aren\u2019t any. We\u2019ll all regret that | Nesrine Malik"},"content":{"rendered":"

I never thought it possible that you could look back on the Iraq war, and the foreign invasions of the \u201cwar on terror\u201d in general, and feel some measure of nostalgia. For a time when there were at least concerted attempts to justify unilateral interventions and illegal wars in the name of global security, and even a moral duty to liberate the women of Afghanistan<\/a> or \u201cfree the Iraqi people<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now, as the Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, is in essence abducted<\/a> and Venezuela taken over by the US<\/a>, there is barely any effort to situate the coup in any reasoning other than the US\u2019s interests. Nor are there any attempts to solicit consent from domestic or international law-making bodies and allies, let alone the public. The days of the US trying to convince the world that Saddam Hussein did in fact have weapons of mass destruction despite secretly having no reliable intelligence<\/a> were, in fact, the good old days.<\/p>\n

Maduro \u201ceffed around and found out\u201d, said the US defence secretary<\/a>, Pete Hegseth. \u201cAmerica can project our will anywhere<\/a>, any time.\u201d The US will now \u201crun Venezuela\u201d said the president, Donald Trump. \u201cWe are going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil<\/a>.\u201d There is little to no effort to make reasonings for the takeover cohere. It is claimed that Maduro is guilty of \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d and other charges including<\/a> \u201cConspiracy to Possess Machineguns [sic] and Destructive Devices against the United States\u201d \u2013 charges that not only fail to clear the bar required for invasion and abduction, but also apparently are not even taken that seriously by Trump himself. Others charged with drug offences have been pardoned. Among them are Honduras\u2019s former president Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> and Ross Ulbricht and Larry Hoover, both released from life sentences<\/a> for convictions including drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump monitors US military operations in Venezuela, with CIA director John Ratcliffe, at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, 3 January 2026. Photograph: Molly Riley\/AP<\/p>\n

The point, as demonstrated by triumphalist posts<\/a> on social media that include hip-hop-soundtracked montages<\/a> and Trump as a sort of gangster in chief, is in the very rebuke of the notion that US actions are subject to due process. The Venezuela coup is not an exhibition of the long arm of the law, but the fact that the US is the law and is not subject to any higher one, able to wield its extraordinary power and lethality in the dead of night, kill dozens of innocents and face no consequences, let alone censure.<\/p>\n

And the response so far has proven this to be correct. These extraordinary scenes, actions and statements are already being passed into the realm of the normal by the sort of bland, hedged statements that we have grown accustomed to. Several politicians and heads of state have engaged in the sort of feeble and contradictory statements they make when their kind of diplomacy collides with the reality that their allies are out of their minds. Keir Starmer says that the situation is \u201cfast moving\u201d and that he will \u201cestablish all the facts<\/a>\u201d, just as the facts are marching Maduro on a perp walk in Brooklyn<\/a>. The EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is \u201cfollowing very closely the situation in Venezuela<\/a> \u2026 any solution must respect international law and the UN Charter\u201d. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas reassures us that it is \u201cclosely monitoring the situation<\/a>\u201d, as is the Australian government<\/a> and others.<\/p>\n

What you will be reminded of with increasing frequency, once there are no more facts to be established or live situations to monitor, is that Maduro was a very bad man. Even if the importance of international law is proclaimed, it will be done in tandem with condemnation of Maduro. The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, always out in front, leads the charge with this platonic ideal<\/a>. Point number one, she tweeted on Saturday: \u201cThe UK has consistently rejected Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s legitimacy, and called for a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela.\u201d Two, she added: \u201cAs the prime minister has made clear, we support international law. Our collective focus must now be on achieving a transition without bloodshed to a democratic government.\u201d Note that there is no acknowledgment that international law was already violated, and by whom \u2013 only that it is supported, but apparently in no ways in which it can actually be upheld.<\/p>\n

The upshot is that we kick off a year in which the die is cast. The Venezuelan incident will shred whatever little remained of the pretence that there is any will to stand up for norms that underpin global security \u2013 that sense that there will be consequences, either material or social, that deter land grabs, annexations or regime changes. The world is already ripe for such a moment. The Middle East is a hotspot, maturing into a competition between rising Gulf states, and further unsettled by an unfettered US and Israel. We see this in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. It is a mere blip on the news map now, but Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two powerful, previously close allies with increasingly ambitious regional agendas, are facing off over Yemen<\/a> and the sides in the conflict that each support there. The escalation in rhetoric and military action<\/a> \u2013 Saudi Arabia struck a UAE shipment of combat vehicles headed for Yemen and accused the country of endangering its national security \u2013 opens an unprecedented front in the Gulf.<\/p>\n

Such chaos has already been enabled by the UAE\u2019s new questionable, imperial role in the region and beyond in Sudan\u2019s cruel war, and that country joins the club of nations that face no repercussions. On the other side of the Gulf, protests in Iran are in their second week and have already captured the interest of Trump, who has threatened more strikes<\/a>, taking the prospect of US-led regime change there out of the realm of the unlikely. As is Trump\u2019s threatened annexation of Greenland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other improbabilities become possibilities. China is performing military drills around Taiwan<\/a>. Vladimir Putin needs little encouragement, but the Trumpian doctrine of imperial dominion and discretionary right to launch military campaigns now mirrors Putin\u2019s own, and further imbues Russia\u2019s actions in Ukraine with validity. After Venezuela, you would be mad, if you were a regime with some measure of financial and military strength and regional ambition, not to test the waters at least.<\/p>\n

The tepid response from those who still feel the need to restate support for international law does nothing but contribute to this state of encouraged predation. The situation in Venezuela<\/a> cannot be contained with peaceful transition (which is unlikely if the entirety of recent history is anything to go by). Just as Gaza could not be contained. One could argue that it is wise not to anger Trump \u2013 not even with a statement of the truth of his actions \u2013 and ask what a country such as the UK could do anyway. But resisting the violation of rules and insisting on adherence, even if certainly in vain, is how norms are established and then maintained. Lying low and hoping that this too shall pass is cowardice, denial and historical illiteracy.<\/p>\n

The consequences will be reaped increasingly, and not just by the unfortunate in faraway places. Fences, both practical and notional, that maintained a settlement \u2013 fragile and flawed, but a settlement nonetheless \u2013 are being dismantled. Silence is not safety. It is, to use the language of the day and channel the jubilant Hegseth, \u201ceffing around\u201d and \u201csoon finding out\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I never thought it possible that you could look back on the Iraq war, and the foreign invasions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-388931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}