The Trump administration has developed a series of options for launching attacks on Venezuela, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, as the US continues its military buildup in the region.
The report said that one option would involve bombing Venezuelan military facilities with the goal of collapsing military support for Maduro in hopes that it would get the Venezuelan leader to flee. But critics of the approach argue that it would likely have the opposite effect, rallying the military around its embattled leader.
The second option would be to send special operations forces, such as Navy SEALs or the Army’s Delta Force, into Venezuela to kill or capture Maduro. Such an operation would put the US troops involved in the attack at serious risk since Maduro has the support of his military and a civilian militia that the Venezuelan government says has millions of members.
The third option would involve sending a much larger force into Venezuela to capture airfields and some of Venezuela’s infrastructure and oil fields. The Washington Examiner has reported that US military planners believe the forces in the region are now sufficient to seize and hold key strategic facilities such as ports and airfields on Venezuelan territory.
The Times report said that President Trump is reluctant to back an operation that would put US troops at risk or come with the chance of failure, and for that reason, other plans are being developed that would involve naval drones and long-range weapons. A decision isn’t expected until the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, which just left the Mediterranean, arrives near Venezuela.
If Trump orders an attack on Venezuela, it would almost certainly lead to a full-blown war or a quick decapitation of the government, which would likely plunge the country into chaos. The Times report cited Trump aides who said far more planning has gone into striking at the Maduro government than on what it would take to govern Venezuela should the operation succeed.
Trump aides said that the president has expressed reservations about attacking Venezuela and that he’s asking what the US could get out of it, with a focus on Venezuela’s vast oil resources. The push to launch a war in Venezuela is being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security advisor, and Stephen Miller, the president’s chief domestic policy advisor.
The administration has asked the Justice Department to come up with a legal justification for the attack, though any war with Venezuela without congressional approval would be illegal under the Constitution. The DOJ is expected to lean on claims that Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel, which lack evidence and have been strongly denied by the Venezuelan government.
The administration has been coming under increasing scrutiny from Congress over its bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the region, which has involved the extrajudicial execution of 64 people. The Pentagon has provided no evidence to back up its claims about what the vessels are carrying and has admitted to Congress that it doesn’t know the identities of the people it’s been killing.
