The United States has a familiar way of telling the same story: a foreign country is unstable, its leader is dangerous and American involvement is framed not as an interference but as a heroic rescue. Venezuela is just the latest setting for this recurring narrative. The suggestion that removing or even forcibly detaining President Nicolás Maduro would somehow “help the Venezuelan people” is not only unrealistic, but it is also historically dishonest.
U.S. intervention has never been neutral. It is rarely about democracy or the well-being of civilians. Instead, it is about control, optics and the preservation of American influence. When Congress discusses Venezuela, the language is carefully chosen: humanitarian aid, restoring democracy and protecting citizens, but the methods remain the same ones that have repeatedly failed across Latin America and beyond.
This is not a new experiment. In Chile, the U.S. backed the overthrow of a democratically elected government in the name of stability, only to usher in years of dictatorship. In Panama, the U.S. justified the capture of Manuel Noriega as a necessary intervention, despite the civilian deaths and destruction that followed. In Iraq and Libya, regime change was framed as liberation, leaving behind power vacuums, violence and generations of instability. Each time, the promise was progress. Each time, the reality collapsed
When U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003, many around the world briefly cheered the fall of Saddam Hussein, celebrating the end of a brutal dictatorship. Iraqis publicly welcomed U.S. troops, and signs reading things like “Thank You America,” “Down With Saddam” and “Freedom at Last” appeared in staged and spontaneous moments alike. The relief that Hussein was gone didn’t mean the United States was a savior, but it recognized America as a powerful foreign army with its own agenda. What followed was years of occupation, insurgency and widespread violence. Independent estimates show that between roughly 182 thousand and 205 thousand Iraqi civilians were killed in direct violence related to the Iraq War from 2003 through 2018. Total conflict-related deaths, including combatants and indirect effects, exceed 300 thousand people and possibly much more by broader estimates. In the U.S. and around the world, millions protested the war. Signs at anti-war rallies carried blunt messages like “No More War,” “U.S. Troops Out Now,” “Stop Killing Our Brothers and Sisters” and “Not Our War, Not Our Soldiers’ Blood.” These slogans captured a reality that many Iraqis felt much more acutely than foreign headlines: removing a dictator did not make life safer if he was replaced by another just the same, and foreign soldiers were still killing civilians and destabilizing communities long after the initial invasion.
But Venezuela is not just another distant case study. The United States repeatedly inserts itself into foreign crises under the promise of democracy and stability, only to leave behind deeper instability. This pattern also raises serious legal concerns. The War Powers Resolution exists to limit the president’s ability to engage in foreign military action without congressional approval, yet interventions are often justified through executive authority rather than democratic oversight.
International law is just as clear. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the use of force against the political independence of another state. Forcibly removing or detaining a foreign leader violates this principle, even when it is framed as humanitarian action.
Supporters of U.S. involvement argue that extreme circumstances require intervention. But history shows that bypassing legal safeguards does not lead to peace. In Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein did not bring stability. It brought occupation, mass civilian death and years of violence. There is no reason to believe Venezuela would be different.
Helping a population does not mean deciding its future for it. Real support comes from diplomacy, humanitarian aid and respect for self-determination, not from force. If the United States had truly wanted to help, it would have found another leader and aided them in building a better system, not just becoming their new one. Venezuela does not need another powerful nation rewriting its future. It needs the freedom to write its own.
