{"id":258586,"date":"2025-11-19T13:28:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T17:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=258586"},"modified":"2025-11-19T13:28:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T17:28:46","slug":"analysis-what-are-us-aims-toward-venezuela-the-historical-parallel-is-panama-not-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/analysis-what-are-us-aims-toward-venezuela-the-historical-parallel-is-panama-not-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"ANALYSIS: What are US aims toward Venezuela? The historical parallel is Panama \u2013 not Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brett McGurk is a CNN global affairs analyst who served in senior national security positions under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>

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CNN- More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the \u201cHighway of Death\u201d due to car bombs and snipers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has our country gotten itself into?<\/em><\/p>

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That was my first thought on that harrowing ride, and over the course of a year in the country and then across subsequent presidential administrations, I often counseled prudence and caution when setting American foreign policy objectives. That is especially the case when it comes to the use of military power, the application of which must be tied to clear, articulated and achievable aims.<\/p>

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You might think the current situation in Venezuela<\/a> \u2013 where the US has now deployed 15% of its naval power and is conducting ground exercises nearby \u2013 triggers a cautionary tale to stop before our country once again finds itself in a situation that we do not fully understand with uncertain consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so fast.<\/p>

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The situation in Venezuela today has little comparison to Iraq and far more resembles Panama 35 years ago, before the US military operation to remove a dictator and install an elected government that enjoyed vast support from the population there. That mission was a success, and Panama today is a functioning democracy, friendly to the US, albeit not without problems from crime to corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible that we are so paralyzed by the Iraq (and Afghanistan) experience, to miss an opportunity to improve the lives of Venezuelans and stability in our own hemisphere along the lines of Panama?<\/s><\/p>

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US President George H.W. Bush answering a question during a press conference on December 22, 1989. Bush said he won’t be satisfied until Panama’s Manuel Antonio Noriega is brought to justice and that the United States will hunt him “as long as it takes.” Ron Edmonds\/AP<\/p>

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Venezuela and Panama: Similar Pretexts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On December 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation to define the rationale behind the mission he had just ordered into Panama. He explained that Panama was led by \u201can indicted drug trafficker,\u201d Manuel Noriega, who would soon \u201cbe brought to justice\u201d in the US. Bush added that Noriega annulled democratic elections, and that the winners of those elections would soon take power in Panama City likely with broad support. Noriega\u2019s regime also threatened and harmed Americans, including the recent death of an American soldier, shot by Noriega\u2019s security services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Bush discussed the strategic importance of the Panama Canal, and Washington\u2019s commitment to existing treaties that Noriega was unlikely to honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against that backdrop, Bush explained the goals of the mission: \u201cTo safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks later, Noriega was in US custody, the elected opposition government took power, and US forces began to leave the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently spoke with a former US military counterpart who took part in this operation, parachuting into Panama before Bush made that address. \u201cOut of our many military ventures since Korea,\u201d he told me, \u201cPanama must be considered one of our most successful. To go there now is to see a very prosperous Democratic country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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US soldiers move a large crane into the area near the Vatican Embassy to Panama, on December 30, 1989. Corinne Dufka\/Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, let\u2019s look at Venezuela \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country is run by Nicolas Maduro, who like Noriega faces criminal indictments in US courts. The charges against Maduro are more extensive. His 2020 indictment in New York lists counts of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and corruption. He is also accused of heading the trafficking organization \u201cCartel de los Soles,\u201d which the State Department just branded a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Washington has offered a $50 million reward for anyone that can help bring Maduro into US custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Noriega, Maduro has also invalidated successive elections and violently suppressed democratic movements inside his country. The US and most of its Western allies recognize the opposition led by Maria Corina Machado as Venezuela\u2019s legitimate government. Opposition parties according to independent observers received 70% of the national vote in Venezuela\u2019s presidential elections in 2024, which Maduro claims to have won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Maduro, like Noriega, has threatened and harmed American citizens, as well as regional peace and security. In recent years, like his allies in Iran, Maduro has effectively held Americans as hostages for diplomatic maneuvering with the US. These hostages include an American sailor vacationing in Venezuela, longtime American residents of the country, and US-based executives of Citgo, the US subsidiary of Venezuela\u2019s state oil company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, Maduro threatened to invade neighboring Guyana, an American ally, and today claims sovereignty over two-thirds of Guyana, justifying the claim \u2013 much like Putin over eastern Ukraine \u2013 based on false history and a staged referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significant differences<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If Maduro is replaced in Caracas, there is no guarantee that local authorities throughout the country would work with the new government, opening the prospect for civil wars and a violent competition for power and resources. Maduro claims to have recruited a militia in the millions to resist any US-backed operation, and while that claim may be exaggerated, we should presume that drug cartels may seize control in the countryside as opposed to the forces of democracy we might hope or wish to see prevail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venezuela is over 10 times larger than Panama, something military planners would likely recommend required a far larger force than the nearly 26,000 personnel deployed in in the 1989 operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The geostrategic context is also vastly different. In 1989, the Soviet Union had collapsed with the Berlin Wall coming down six weeks before the US invasion of Panama. America was the undisputed great power in the world, and there was no reason to expect or anticipate other great powers resisting the military operation or making moves of their own in other hemispheres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Russia and China are aligned with Maduro, and their leaders would likely cite any US operation in Venezuela as further justification to pursue their own hemispheric ambitions, against Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are Trump\u2019s options?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump last week said cryptically<\/a> that he had \u201cmade up his mind\u201d on a course of action in Venezuela. That followed CNN reporting<\/a> on multiple high level White House meetings with military commanders on options following the Naval buildup off the coast and exercises conducted by the US Marine Corps across rural and urban areas of Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maduro seems to be reading into these moves a possible American intervention, calling up his militias while also appealing for dialogue, even singing John Lennon\u2019s peace anthem \u201cImagine\u201d at a recent rally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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People watch the USS Gravely, a US Navy warship, departing the Port of Spain on October 30. The US warship arrived in Trinidad and Tobago on October 26, 2025, for joint exercises near the coast of Venezuela. Martin Bernetti\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding to the confusion, the administration has not been clear on the aims for what it now calls Operation Southern Spear. The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, described the mission as one to \u201cdefend our homeland, remove narcoterrorism from our hemisphere, and secure our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people.\u201d While there has been no mention in official statements of restoring democracy in Venezuela, or an objective to seek the removal of Maduro as its leader, Trump has declared Maduro\u2019s days \u201cnumbered\u201d and the military deployments, including the most advanced carrier strike group in the US arsenal, suggest aims beyond the publicly stated goals of Southern Spear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n