All trump did was to "arrest" and remove Maduro. There was NO regime change. See https://democraticunderground.com/100220907148 and https://democraticunderground.com/100220907041 for Professor Vladeck's explanation. trump did not remove the current government and is NOT in control.
Trump claims the U.S. will run Venezuela. What's the plan?
The raid to nab Maduro was brilliantly executed. The aftermath could get extremely messy.
By @maxboot.bsky.social
archive.md/2026.01.03-2...
— Voice4Justice (@voices4justice.bsky.social) 2026-01-03T20:57:57.418Z
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/03/trump-maduro-raid-military-venezuela/
In Venezuela, by comparison, U.S. troops staged a quick in-and-out raid. It was regime decapitation, not regime change. At his Mar-a-Lago news conference, Trump said, “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” What is he talking about? There are no indications that U.S. troops are preparing to occupy Venezuela. If such an operation were attempted, it could easily turn into a debacle, just like the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and it would violate Trump’s repeated pledges not to engage in “nation-building.”
Maduro was not a one-man band. He presided over a large apparatus of oppression, including, among others, the army, the national guard, the national police, the intelligence service, and a Colombian guerrilla group ELN. All of those forces remain intact after the U.S. raid. Also still in place are many of Maduro’s top lieutenants, including the ministers of defense and interior, who were implicated in his alleged crimes.
They give no sign of willingness to cede power to the democratic opposition led by María Corina Machado, who recently left the country to accept the Noble Peace Prize. Edmundo González, who was widely believed to have won the rigged 2024 presidential election, is also out of the country. On Saturday, Trump spoke dismissively about Machado and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio is talking with Maduro’s hand-picked vice president, Delcy Rodríguez.....
Like George W. Bush after the invasion of Iraq, Trump enjoyed his “Mission Accomplished” moment on Saturday. But if there is one thing we have learned over the past quarter-century, it is much easier to topple tyrants than to build stable and secure societies afterward. History’s ultimate verdict on Trump’s military operation will be based on the fate of post-Maduro Venezuela, and the U.S., despite what Trump said about running the country, has only limited leverage to determine its fate.
As noted by Prof. Vladeck, this was an FBI arrest operation where the military was merely protecting the FBI
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