If you’re confused about the strategic justification for the Trump administration’s policies toward Venezuela—including the recent abduction of President Nicolás Maduro—I don’t blame you because most of the rationales that have been offered up so far don’t pass the giggle test.

For starters, this isn’t about protecting the United States from “narcoterrorism.” Not only was Venezuela not a significant source of illegal drugs coming to the United States (and certainly not fentanyl), but U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to give a full pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández—whom a U.S. jury had previously convicted of narcotics trafficking—shows you how much he really cares about that problem. Moreover, the U.S. Justice Department has now admitted that the “Cartel de los Soles”—the supposedly dangerous drug cartel that the Trump administration kept bleating about last year—never actually existed. It was, in other words, a wholly fictitious bit of administration propaganda every bit as real as those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction we were repeatedly warned about and never found.

If you’re confused about the strategic justification for the Trump administration’s policies toward Venezuela—including the recent abduction of President Nicolás Maduro—I don’t blame you because most of the rationales that have been offered up so far don’t pass the giggle test.

For starters, this isn’t about protecting the United States from “narcoterrorism.” Not only was Venezuela not a significant source of illegal drugs coming to the United States (and certainly not fentanyl), but U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to give a full pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández—whom a U.S. jury had previously convicted of narcotics trafficking—shows you how much he really cares about that problem. Moreover, the U.S. Justice Department has now admitted that the “Cartel de los Soles”—the supposedly dangerous drug cartel that the Trump administration kept bleating about last year—never actually existed. It was, in other words, a wholly fictitious bit of administration propaganda every bit as real as those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction we were repeatedly warned about and never found.

The seizure of Maduro was also not about making the United States more secure. Venezuela is a very weak country—as the ease with which Maduro was captured shows—and it’s not a close........

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