The brilliantly executed US operation to snatch Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro benefits American citizens in many different ways.
- It took out the head of a major international organized crime cartel. The cartel, which the US has labeled the “Cartel de los Soles,” or Cartel of the Suns, is responsible for cocaine trafficking into the United States. Maduro had turned the upper levels of the Venezuelan government, military, and security services into a huge organized crime entity. The Department of Justice is prosecuting Maduro and others for running what a federal grand jury indictment calls “a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy.” While no evidence indicates that Maduro’s cartel directly trafficked fentanyl into the U.S., the Treasury Department sanctioned the Cartel of the Suns last July for providing material support to the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico, which the DOJ described as “flooding the United States with fentanyl.”
- It took out the leader who flooded the United States with hardened criminals, organized terrorist gangs like Tren de Aragua, and millions of refugees. Once a new leadership is established in Venezuela, the country can take back its criminals and terrorists, and its refugees can return home and rebuild.
- It took out the leader of an international terrorist organization. Maduro’s Cartel of the Suns is a federally designated foreign terrorist organization, or FTO, which the State Department said is “responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere.”
- It took out the sponsor of Hezbollah and other jihadists on our southern maritime border. For more than a decade, the Maduro regime has hosted, sheltered, armed, and provided training for Hezbollah terrorists and other jihadists under its protection, just a three-hour flight from Florida. Hezbollah is responsible for killing hundreds of Americans since the 1980s.
- It took out the sponsor of Iranian surveillance and kamikaze drones on our southern maritime border. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), responsible for supporting Hezbollah and other terrorists, outsourced its drone production to Venezuela, where the weapons were seen stationed at a Venezuelan air base.
- It took out a major supply of cash to the Iranian force responsible for killing hundreds of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maduro ran a scheme with Iran to exchange fuel and gold to fund the IRGC and its terrorist Qods Force. The IRGC and its Qods Force designed, developed, manufactured, and deployed key improvised explosive device (IED) components, as well as training, to wound and kill hundreds of American and allied men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. These components included explosively formed penetrators (EFP), improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAM), and other devices. The IRGC/Qods Force, which also provided training, was responsible for 17 percent of American casualties in Iraq, according to the State Department and Pentagon.
- It deprived Communist China of plans to deploy its navy around Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and the Panama Canal. China is rapidly expanding its navy to become a global force. Maduro provided China with a reliable partner in the Caribbean. Late in 2025, China conducted war games simulating a battle against the United States in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Removing Maduro has now deprived Beijing of the promise of a naval basing partner on our southern maritime border.
- It restored and modernized our 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine. Since 1823, the Monroe Doctrine—implemented by our last Founding Father president, James Monroe—kept foreign empires from exerting their presence in the Americas. President Obama renounced the Monroe Doctrine, opening the door for China to build a beachhead in our hemisphere. President Trump added a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which would push back against China’s gains, reasserting a free hemisphere through skillful statecraft and minimal use of force.
- The operation was not a war. It did not attempt to destroy the Venezuelan military, its command and control, or the regime’s power structures. As Senator Mike Lee reported from his January 3 conversation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the military “was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant.” It was over in an hour.
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J. Michael Waller is Director of Strategy at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC, and author of Big Intel: How the CIA and FBI Went from Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villains (Regnery, 2024).
