President Donald Trump‘s order of the U.S. military to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife was an imperialist hit that shares much with many other moments of American history.
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American presidents of both parties have claimed — or even invented — wide latitude for themselves in sending U.S. forces into other countries to meet some end they dreamed up. Most of that adventurism came to no good, and there is no reason to think the decision to send in American forces to snatch Maduro will be any different.
Some of Trump’s supporters might well see the Maduro raid as akin to Obama’s decision to send Seal Team 6 in to get Osama bin Laden. This ain’t that: Bin Laden directed an attack that killed 3,000 Americans. The world cheered when it was clear bin Laden was dead.
Trump’s Maduro raid is more like when the U.S. and its allies cleared the way for the Shah to come to power in 1950s Iran. We wanted that nation’s oil and installed a guy who made sure Iran’s oil industry wouldn’t be nationalized.
It’s also like when Panama was created in the early 20th Century. The U.S. wanted a canal in that area and didn’t want to deal with the Colombians, who controlled the isthmus. So, our country backed forces that wanted to establish an independent nation – one that, shock of shocks, would be A-OK with a canal being built there.
From Panama to Vietnam, from the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Cuba, Iraq and even Grenada — our country’s history is replete with instances of American forces storming into some country or another to get what its president at the moment wanted. Not one of those countries today is a paragon of safe, corruption-free, representative government.
Trump is likely to learn the truth of Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn Rule, when the former secretary of state warned the George W. Bush administration about the dangers of pulling down Saddam Hussein’s admittedly horrible regime in Iraq. That rule is simple: you break it; you own it. Meaning, if you destabilize a country, you’re responsible for the mess that follows.
Trump will now be responsible for all that happens in Venezuela from this moment forward. Hyperinflation? That’s now the problem of the Trump administration. Lingering, intense poverty? Trump administration’s f. Nascent civil war? Same thing.
Trump won’t get unanimous backing even from his own party for the Maduro raid. Already, his old buddy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is castigating it as a strike for oil. Trump bolstered that argument by talking at length about how he was going to take over the country and boost oil production.
However good Trump is feeling at the moment, he would be wise to crack open a history book. The U.S. can easily break a country. Owning the aftermath is never a picnic.
Straight From 
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