Arizona Tribune - Trump takes huge political gamble in Venezuela regime change

Trump has railed against US entanglements abroad for years.

When he branded the post-9/11 Iraq invasion "a stupid thing" a decade ago, he was setting out a central tenet of the nationalist, isolationist MAGA ideology that would win him the White House.

So Saturday's operation by special forces to swoop into Caracas and seize Venezuela's leader Nicholas Maduro was doubly risky.

The service members in the complex assault -- including troops ferried in by helicopter, jets bombing sites around the city, and an armada of Navy ships off the coast -- got away without losing a single soldier.

But for Trump, the domestic political risks are only just starting.

Not surprisingly, Democratic Party leaders swiftly attacked.

The senior Democratic senator, Chuck Schumer, called the operation "reckless."

"Second unjustified war in my life time. This war is illegal," Senator Ruben Gallego, an Iraq veteran, said. "There is no reason for us to be at war with Venezuela."

Many in the Republican Party that Trump dominates came out to applaud.

The White House spokeswoman ramped up enthusiasm with a social media post in the early hours of Saturday featuring strong arm, fist and fire emojis.

And Senator Tom Cotton was quickly on board.

"I commend President Trump and our brave troops and law-enforcement officers for this incredible operation," he said.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives and a key cog in the Trump political machine, quickly sought to scotch questions over the military operation's legality.

"Today’s military action in Venezuela was a decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives," he said.

Johnson made clear there'd be no rush for Congress to meet and debate. Trump administration officials are "working" to set up briefings only next week, he said.

- America first or Venezuela? -

But there are signs of disquiet among Republicans.

Soon after news first broke that the extraordinary raid on Caracas was underway, conservative Senator Mike Lee wrote on X that he was looking "forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action."

There had been no "declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force," he noted.

A short while later, Lee was back on team Trump, saying he'd spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and had been reassured that the operation was simply to execute Maduro's arrest.

That "likely falls within the president's inherent authority."

But Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump booster who recently fell out with the president, was far less forgiving.

In a long post on X, she ripped apart Trump's explanation that the Venezuela conflict is about stopping narcotics trafficking.

Most of the deadly fentanyl entering the United States comes via Mexico, she said, so "why hasn't the Trump admin taken action against Mexican cartels?"

Greene went on to pose a series of questions likely to be echoed across much of the MAGA base, including how to explain the difference between forcing regime change in Venezuela and Russian or Chinese aggression against Ukraine or Taiwan.

"Disgust" with foreign interventions, spending abroad instead of at home, and "neocon wars" -- "this is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end," she wrote.

"Boy were we wrong."

G.P.Martin--AT