01-03-2026, 01:44 PM
Reasons for concern:
Muscular U.S. foreign policy in Venezuela, Iran, etc., is creating apprehension about future conflicts.
Difficulty with bright-line, principled distinctions between Venezuelan military action and other conflicts that are indisputably unjustified.
Unknown final outcome, with significant risks, some outside U.S. control.
Reasons to wait-and-see:
Deposed leader actually was an authoritarian human rights violator who led a narcotics syndicate.
U.S. action to date has been targeted, with limited loss of innocent civilian life.
Broader context:
Deposing Latin American leaders has often turned out poorly
But the U.S. has achieved good results on occasion, such as with regime change in Panama and the Dominican Republic.
Expanding the analysis to other regions, the U.S. decision to install the Shah worked out poorly, as did Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
But the U.S. did well in precipitating regime change in Central Europe at the end of the Cold War.
Highlighting one example or another can be misleading, and it's difficult to generalize whether regime change is ever/never a good idea.
Muscular U.S. foreign policy in Venezuela, Iran, etc., is creating apprehension about future conflicts.
Difficulty with bright-line, principled distinctions between Venezuelan military action and other conflicts that are indisputably unjustified.
Unknown final outcome, with significant risks, some outside U.S. control.
Reasons to wait-and-see:
Deposed leader actually was an authoritarian human rights violator who led a narcotics syndicate.
U.S. action to date has been targeted, with limited loss of innocent civilian life.
Broader context:
Deposing Latin American leaders has often turned out poorly
But the U.S. has achieved good results on occasion, such as with regime change in Panama and the Dominican Republic.
Expanding the analysis to other regions, the U.S. decision to install the Shah worked out poorly, as did Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
But the U.S. did well in precipitating regime change in Central Europe at the end of the Cold War.
Highlighting one example or another can be misleading, and it's difficult to generalize whether regime change is ever/never a good idea.
When I registered here in 2014, TrumpCard seemed like an apolitical user ID...
