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Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: “Behind the News” is the product of Sun staff assisted by the Sun’s AI lab, which includes a variety of tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini and ChatGPT.
The seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces Saturday represents a breach of international norms.[1][23]
The raid is not only a break with international practice; it is also widely viewed as illegal by scholars and some lawmakers under the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, because President Donald Trump launched a large-scale military operation and de facto regime-change effort without prior authorization from Congress.[1][2][3][21][22]
Why Congress must sign off
Constitutional allocation of war powers:
Article I, Section 8 gives Congress — not the president — the power “to declare War,” a grant most interpreters view as exclusive, meaning the president cannot unilaterally initiate full-scale hostilities or warlike operations.[15][17][18]
Congress also controls funding and must approve treaties, so the constitutional design forces shared responsibility for decisions of war and peace rather than leaving them to a single person.[15][17][18]
War powers resolution framework:
In response to U.S. presidents deploying troops in Vietnam and elsewhere without declarations of war, Congress enacted the War Powers Resolution of 1973,[20] which says U.S. forces may be introduced into hostilities only pursuant to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization or a national emergency caused by an attack on the United States or its forces.[18][19][20]
The statute requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours and if Congress does not authorize the operation within 60 days (plus up to 30 days for withdrawal), use of the armed forces is automatically terminated,[4][20] reinforcing that open‑ended military campaigns cannot rest on unilateral presidential say‑so.[2][3]
How Trump broke those limits
No declaration, no tailored authorization, no attack on the US:
Legal commentators note that Trump’s strikes in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and commando operation count as “hostilities” yet lacked a declaration of war, a Venezuela‑specific authorization for use of military force or any ongoing armed attack on the United States that could trigger an emergency exception.[1][2][3][19]
By his own description, Trump launched an “extraordinary military operation” to “run” Venezuela and control its oil,[1][2][3] goals far beyond the narrow, time‑limited defensive uses of force the War Powers framework allows without prior congressional approval.[2][3][4][19]
Explicit choice to bypass Congress:
Trump publicly admitted he deliberately did not inform Congress beforehand, saying lawmakers leak,[1] even as congressional leaders complained they were kept “completely in the dark”[21][22] and began preparing War Powers votes to halt further action.[22]
Members from both chambers have labeled the raid an “unauthorized military action”[21][22] and accused the administration of violating both the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution by treating major uses of force as a unilateral presidential prerogative.[1][2][3][21][22]
From controversial practice to defiance:
Earlier interventions in Cuba, Brazil and the Dominican Republic were themselves criticized as executive overreach,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and Congress eventually tried to claw back authority through measures like the Boland Amendments[13] and the War Powers Resolution.[4][20]
Trump’s decision to ignore consultation norms, skip advance authorization and openly promise a prolonged U.S. role running Venezuela[1][2][3] pushes past gray areas into defiance of the statutory and constitutional constraints Congress erected in response to those very Cold War abuses.[2][3][4][20]
Why this sets a dangerous precedent
Normalizing regime change by raid:
Unlike Manuel Noriega’s capture, which followed an invasion of Panama,[14] or earlier covert coups that tried to disguise U.S. fingerprints,[5][6][7][8][9][10] the Maduro operation is an overt, rapid seizure of a sitting head of state on his own soil for immediate trial in U.S. courts, ordered by a president who did not seek Congress’ blessing.[1][2][3]
If left unchecked, it signals that future presidents can unilaterally pick foreign leaders they label “criminals,” deploy force across borders to capture them and present the result as a domestic law enforcement victory rather than an act of war that requires congressional debate, political experts warn.[2][3]
:Eroding separation of powers at home
Scholars say that each time a president sidesteps Congress on major uses of force, it quietly shifts power from the legislative branch to the executive, weakening the checks and balances meant to prevent abuses abroad from feeding authoritarian tendencies at home.[3][17][18]
By treating the capture of a foreign president as a commander‑in‑chief decision that Congress can only react to after the fact, Trump is building on decades of drift toward an “imperial presidency”[2][3][24] and setting an awful precedent that future presidents — of either party — can cite when they want to launch new wars without a vote.[2][3][17]
Undermining international and domestic rules simultaneously:
International law experts already characterize the raid as a significant breach of Venezuela’s sovereignty and of head‑of‑state immunity;[1][23] layering domestic constitutional violations on top of that creates the impression that both international and U.S. legal limits are optional if a president feels strongly enough.[2][3]
In that sense, the operation is not just another controversial intervention on a long list — it could be used as a template for unreviewed presidential warmaking that future occupants of the White House may feel emboldened to copy.[2][3]
Similarities to conditions around 2000s Iraq War
- Regime-change ambition: Both operations were aimed at removing an entrenched, hostile leader (Saddam Hussein, Maduro) and reshaping that country’s politics in a way favorable to Washington. [25]
- Democracy and security framing: In Iraq, the Bush administration invoked weapons of mass destruction, alleged terrorism links and freeing the Iraqi people; in Venezuela, Trump officials pair narco‑terrorism and cartel rhetoric with promises of restoring Venezuelan democracy and stability after “decapitating” an autocratic regime. [25]
- “Example” to the region: Iraq was sold as a democratic domino that would transform the Middle East; Trump has presented Maduro’s capture and a U.S.‑guided transition as a signal to other hostile regimes in the Americas.[26]
Operational and legal parallels:
- Unilateral, controversial force: The Iraq invasion proceeded without explicit U.N. Security Council authorization and drew intense debate over its legality; the strike campaign and commando raid that grabbed Maduro likewise lacked U.N. cover and is widely described by legal analysts as a serious breach of Venezuelan sovereignty and head‑of‑state immunity.[27]
- Endgame problems: Analysts note that, as in Iraq, Washington executed the kinetic phase against Maduro with impressive efficiency but lacks a clear, realistic plan for governing or stabilizing a fractured society afterward.[27]
Key differences:
- Scale and occupation: Iraq was a full‑scale invasion, regime collapse and multi‑year occupation aimed at rebuilding the state from the top down. In Venezuela, U.S. forces removed the president but did not occupy the country; Maduro’s officials, security services and rival factions still control most of the state apparatus, so regime change is partial and contested at best.[27]
- Location of trial and custody: Saddam was captured inside a country already under U.S. occupation and tried in an Iraqi court heavily shaped by that occupation. Maduro was seized in his own capital and flown directly to the United States to face long‑standing narcotics and corruption charges in federal court, a combination that has very few precedents in modern international practice.[29]
- Domestic and regional politics: Iraq was a distant Middle Eastern theater with limited immediate spillover in the Western Hemisphere; Venezuela is a major crisis inside the Americas, with neighboring governments divided over the raid and anxious about a precedent for cross‑border leader extractions.[26]
How the analogy is being used:
Commentators and think‑tank analysts are explicitly comparing Maduro’s capture to Iraq (and to Noriega) to warn that “toppling or decapitating a regime is easier than governing a leaderless country,” and that the U.S. could again win the opening move while sleepwalking into a long, messy commitment.[30]
Others stress that, despite shared regime‑change DNA, the absence (so far) of a full occupation or a large‑scale state‑rebuilding project makes Venezuela less than a one‑to‑one replay of Iraq — even as Trump’s talk of having the U.S. “run” Venezuela invites exactly that comparison.[27]
Earlier US interventions
Guatemala 1954 (Operation PBSUCCESS):
The CIA orchestrated a covert coup against President Jacobo Árbenz, backing a rebel force that toppled his government and installed Carlos Castillo Armas, all approved through the National Security Council rather than open congressional authorization.[5][6]
This set an early precedent for executive branch-driven regime change in Latin America, but it was structured as deniable covert action, not an overt U.S. military raid to seize and extradite a sitting head of state for trial in U.S. courts.[5][6]
Cuba 1961 (Bay of Pigs):
The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed amphibious assault by Cuban exiles, financed, organized and green‑lit by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, again without a formal declaration of war or specific public statute authorizing an attack on Cuba.[7]
It exemplified secret presidential warfare, but the goal was to spark regime collapse using proxies, rather than to snatch Fidel Castro and haul him into a U.S. courtroom.[7]
Brazil 1964:
Declassified accounts describe U.S. planning to support a coup against President João Goulart, including naval deployments and immediate recognition of the new military regime once the coup moved forward, decisions taken inside the executive branch.[9][10]
Washington’s role focused on backing and blessing local plotters with no resistance from Goulart’s government, not sending U.S. commandos to remove Goulart directly or asserting jurisdiction to try him abroad.[9][10]
Dominican Republic 1965:
President Lyndon B. Johnson sent more than 22,000 troops into the Dominican Republic during a civil war, citing fears of “another Cuba” and the need to protect U.S. citizens, in what became a full‑scale military occupation known as Operation Power Pack.[11][12]
Although Congress did not declare war, the operation unfolded in the shadow of growing concern over unilateral presidential warmaking and helped spur later efforts — culminating in the War Powers Resolution — to rein in such interventions.[11][12][20]
Nicaragua 1980s (Contras and the Boland Amendments):
As the Reagan administration armed and funded Contra rebels against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, Congress responded with the Boland Amendments, explicitly cutting off appropriated funding for “military or paramilitary operations” aimed at overthrowing the Nicaraguan government.[13]
The administration’s attempts to evade these congressional limits produced the Iran-Contra affair, which legal scholars cite as a cautionary tale about presidents trying to conduct shadow wars after Congress has said no.[13]
Panama 1989 (Operation Just Cause):
The invasion that led to Noriega’s capture involved tens of thousands of U.S. troops and was justified by President George H.W. Bush under treaty rights, protection of U.S. nationals, and the need to defend the Panama Canal, rather than a tailored statute to arrest Noriega.[14]
While controversial under international law, that campaign still resembled a traditional large-scale intervention, and Noriega’s seizure occurred in the context of an invading army and collapsing regime, not a surgical extraction of a functioning head of state for immediate U.S. criminal prosecution.[14]
Sources
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/us/politics/trump-venezuela-congress-authorization.html
[2] https://reason.com/2026/01/03/trump-should-have-gotten-congressional-authorization-to-strike-venezuela-and-capture-maduro/
[3] https://priceschool.usc.edu/news/venezuela-trump-congress-war-monroe-doctrine/
[5] https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/operation-pbsuccess-u-s-covert-action-in-guatemala/
[6] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/guatemala-coup/
[7] https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs
[9] https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/04/01/understand-the-us-participation-in-the-military-coup-of-1964-in-brazil-and-what-may-still-be-revealed/
[10] https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/04/02/understand-the-us-participation-in-the-military-coup-of-1964-in-brazil-and-what-may-still-be-revealed/
[11] https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/military-history-and-science/us-troops-occupy-dominican-republic
[12] https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_international_relations/6/
[13] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reagan-iran/
[14] https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Monographs/Just_Cause.pdf
[15] https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-i/clauses/753
[17] https://www.understandingcongress.org/2025/06/24/congress-in-plain-english-the-war-power/
[18] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/war_powers
[19] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/does-the-president-need-congress-to-approve-military-actions-in-iran
[20] https://www.fcnl.org/updates/2022-06/war-powers-resolution-activist-guide
[21] https://neal.house.gov/2026/01/03/neal-statement-on-president-trumps-unauthorized-military-actions-in-venezuela/
[22] https://democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov/2025/12/meeks-floor-debate-remarks-on-war-powers-resolution-to-prohibit-hostilities-against-venezuela
[23] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4krkz7242o
[24] https://johnfdickerson.substack.com/p/in-the-act-of-normalization
[25] https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/assessing-venezuelas-future-after-nicolas-maduros-bold-capture
[26] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-07/venezuela-comparisons-donald-trump-greenland-argentina-panama/106200808
[27] https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2026-01-06/it-is-easier-to-overthrow-a-tyrant-than-to-govern-a-leaderless-country.html
[28] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdred61epg4o
[29] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/us-venezuela-strike-nicolas-maduro-captured-how-timeline-trump-rcna252041
[30] https://www.csis.org/analysis/maduro-raid-military-victory-no-viable-endgame
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