Iran should take heed of Maduro arrest – Trump will act against thugs | World | News
Many of us will have woken up to the regime change in Venezuela with a sense that this was not how the Twelve Days of Christmas are supposed to go. However, all the warning signs were there that Donald Trump might try to replicate the US overthrow of the regimes in Grenada in 1983 and Panama of 1989.
Most felt America’s activities would amount to economic stranglehold rather than the overnight surgical strikes on Caracas and at least three other areas by Delta Force, a special forces unit of the US Army, the arrest and evacuation of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and dismemberment of his elite Presidential Honour Guard and government. Nevertheless that is what we have seen happen overnight.
Why has this happened? Venezuela’s dictator, Maduro, had proved himself a corrupt and murderous thug who falsified elections, stole billions of dollars, and wrecked a country which should be rich due to its vast oil reserves. He was reliant for power on 30,000 hated Cuban mercenaries who offered personal protection, torture and counter-espionage in exchange for oil exports to the beleaguered Caribbean island.
As a result of Maduro’s taunts, ties to Cuba, and to Columbian drug cartels, the Trump administration offered a reward of $50million for information leading to his capture. However, ‘Operation Southern Spear’, the getting rid of Maduro – arrested by special forces while apparently in bed and carried off with his wife Cilia – is the easy part. He will not be mourned by his people.
US troop-carrying helicopters are over Caracas, but Washington DC will try to avoid a lengthy ground force commitment. Attention now turns to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, winner of the recent 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, while the world deals with the consequences of America’s action.
How will Cuba, with no oil of its own, and regularly suffering power cuts, respond? Their other allies, particularly Iran, are in no position to help. Tehran should read this as warning that America and Israel will have no hesitation in backing the current uprising against the vile Mullah-led regime. Havana will rightly fear invasion by an emboldened United States.
Other states threatened by Donald Trump such as Greenland and Panama, home to the strategic canal, will also be holding crisis meetings. Above all, the lesson of a powerful nation interfering in the affairs of a near neighbour to change its regime with minimal international outcry, will not be lost on China, which recently rehearsed an invasion of Taiwan. Buckle up for 2026. It will be bumpy.
- Dr Peter Caddick-Adams is a military expert and historian. His most recent book is Winston Churchill
