Government supporters demand President Nicolás Maduro's release from U.S. custody during a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 4, 2026.Ariana Cubillos/The Associated Press

Ben Rowswell is a consultant with Catalyze4 who served as Canada’s chargé d’affaires in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, and ambassador to Venezuela from 2014 to 2017.

The voice of a U.S. Army lieutenant-colonel I met more than two decades ago in Iraq came back to me last week, when I read that the U.S. had launched an attack on Venezuela.

Back in 2003, the two of us found ourselves waiting for a helicopter shuttle from Baghdad Airport to the safe Green Zone downtown, where I lived among U.S. personnel sheltering themselves from the nation they occupied. He was curious about why the Canadian government had a diplomat in a country whose invasion we had opposed. I replied that Canada wanted to understand how the U.S. could possibly govern that distant and broken place. He was surprised and dismissive – telling me, in so many words, that they didn’t give a damn what Canada thought.

His fit of pique has remained with me, as a reminder of how oblivious power can make you to reality. After all, it wasn’t Canada’s judgment he needed to fear; it was the fury building among Iraqis.

Venezuela begins releasing political prisoners, including foreigners

The smaller countries of the world sensed it from the moment Iraq’s sovereignty had been tossed aside. Even in countries that admire the U.S. and want it to succeed, a quiet sense of fury builds when we think of a more powerful country dictating outcomes to us. But, being accustomed to power, this officer apparently could not intuit how strongly Iraqis were committed to their sovereignty.

The tidal wave of rage building among the population broke soon afterward. In their unfamiliarity with Iraqi politics, the U.S.’s occupying authorities alienated both the Sunni and Shia populations. Normally at one another’s throats, militias of the opposing sides took a brief respite from their brewing civil war to launch parallel insurgencies against U.S. forces. On one bloody evening in April, 2004, almost two dozen U.S. soldiers were killed across the country in a spasm of bloodletting. By the end of the war, more than 4,000 Americans would join them – the price the U.S. would pay for violating Iraq’s independence.

Sovereignty isn’t some morality play; it is better to think of it as a bulwark against violence. Forged in centuries of warfare, the principle emerged as a way to prevent countries from imposing........

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