Proving 'might is right' right, yet again, the United States has unseated another head of state. President Donald Trump's announcement that United States forces conducted a "large-scale strike" in Venezuela and brought Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife to the United States to face criminal charges is brazen even by US standards. Trump publicly stated that the United States would "run Venezuela" until a "safe, proper and judicious transition" could occur, framing the operation as a justified enforcement of US criminal law and national security interests. 

What is even more unsettling is the barrage of visuals showing Maduro, inelegantly dressed, in handcuffs on American soil. Violation of international law aside, such a display of a president of a sovereign state, not declared criminal in any international court of law, is startling but nothing new in the US playbook. Remember Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Only, the theatre is the neighbourhood and not the faraway 'Middle East'. 

This poses an interesting conundrum for critics and supporters of the US alike. Does the Middle East manual of ushering in 'peace and democracy' apply here? Or are there different sets of rules at work? After all, the Nobel Peace Prize awardee for 2025,........

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