Against a backdrop of broad but vague assertions by US President Donald Trump that the United States is going to "run" Venezuela after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro, a briefing by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top officials left questions among lawmakers about the administration's next steps in the South American country.
Seemingly contradictory statements from Trump and Rubio have suggested at once that the US now controls the levers of Venezuelan power or that the US has no intention of assuming day-to-day governance and will allow Maduro's subordinates to remain in leadership positions for now.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after Rubio's briefing late on Monday that he does not expect the US to deploy troops there.
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The lack of clarity has wrought mounting concerns from lawmakers, Democrats especially, that Trump is embarking on a new era of US expansionism without consultation of Congress or a clear vision for running Venezuela.
The president, in remarks that neared 90 minutes, told House Republicans on Tuesday that the military operation in Venezuela was an "amazing military feat" and "brilliant tactically," while also joking that Maduro, before he was deposed, had been imitating Trump's style of dancing. But he offered few new details in his broad political remarks, nor any updates on the US troops who were injured.
He also criticised Democrats for not praising him for the operation and said they should tell him he did a great job.
"I would say that if they did a good job, their philosophies are so different," Trump said.
"But if they did a good job, I'd be happy for the country."
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The uncertainty on definitive next steps in Venezuela contrasts with the years of discussions and planning that went into US military interventions that deposed other autocratic leaders, notably in Iraq in 2003, which still did not often lead to the hoped-for outcomes.
'Disagreement about how to proceed'
The discrepancy between what Trump and Rubio have said publicly has not sat well with some former diplomats.
"It strikes me that we have no idea whatsoever as to what's next," said Dan Fried, a retired career diplomat, former assistant secretary of state and sanctions coordinator who served under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
"For good operational reasons, there were very few people who knew about the raid, but Trump's remarks about running the country and Rubio's uncomfortable walk back suggests that even within that small group of people, there is disagreement about how to proceed," said Fried who is now with the Atlantic Council think tank.
Supporters of the operation, meanwhile, believe there is little confusion over the US goal.
"The president speaks in big headlines and euphemisms," said Rich Goldberg, a sanctions proponent who worked in the National Energy Dominance Council at the White House until last year and is now a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a hawkish think tank.
Goldberg does not see Rubio becoming "the superintendent of schools" but "effectively, the US will be calling the shots".
"There are people at the top who can make what we want happen or not, and we right now control their purse strings and their lives," he said.
"The president thinks it's enough and the secretary thinks it's enough, and if it's not enough, we'll know very soon and we'll deal with it."
If planning for the US "to run" Venezuela existed prior to Maduro's arrest and extradition to face federal drug charges, it was confined to a small group of Trump political allies, according to current US officials, who note that Trump relies on a very small circle of advisers and has tossed aside much of the traditional decision-making apparatus.
These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their understanding of internal deliberations, said they were not aware of any preparations for either a military occupation or an interim civilian governing authority, which has been a priority for previous administrations when they contemplated going to war to oust a specific leader or government. The White House and the State Department's press office did not return messages seeking comment.
Long discussion among agencies in previous interventions
Previous military actions that deposed autocratic leaders, notably in Panama in 1989 and Iraq in 2003, were preceded by months, if not years, of interagency discussion and debate over how best to deal with power vacuums caused by the ousters of their leaders. The State Department, White House National Security Council, the Pentagon and the intelligence community all participated in that planning.
In Panama, the George H.W. Bush administration had nearly a full year of preparations to launch the invasion that ousted Panama's leader Manuel Noriega. Panama, however, is exponentially smaller than Venezuela, it had long experience as a de facto American territory, and the US occupation was never intended to retake territory or natural resources.
By contrast, Venezuela is vastly larger in size and population and has a decades-long history of animosity toward the United States.
"Panama was not successful because it was supported internationally because it wasn't," Fried said.
"It was a success because it led to a quick, smooth transfer to a democratic government. That would be a success here, but on the first day out, we trashed someone who had those credentials, and that strikes me as daft."
He was referring to Trump's apparent dismissal of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose party is widely believed to have won elections in 2024, results that Maduro refused to accept.
Trump said on Saturday that Machado "doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country" to be a credible leader and suggested he would be OK with Maduro's No. 2, Delcy Rodríguez, remaining in power as long as she works with the US.
Hoped-for outcomes didn't happen in Iraq and Afghanistan
Meanwhile, best-case scenarios like those predicted by the George W. Bush administration for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq that it would be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East and hopes for a democratic and stable Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban died painfully slow deaths at the tremendous expense of American money and lives after initial euphoria over military victories.
"Venezuela looks nothing like Libya, it looks nothing like Iraq, it looks nothing like Afghanistan. It looks nothing like the Middle East," Rubio said this weekend of Venezuela and its neighbours.
"These are Western countries with long traditions at a people-to-people and cultural level, and ties to the United States, so it's nothing like that."
The lack of clarity on Venezuela has been even more pronounced because Trump campaigned on a platform of extricating the US from foreign wars and entanglements, a position backed by his "Make America Great Again" supporters, many of whom are seeking explanations about what the president has in mind for Venezuela.
"Wake up MAGA," Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has bucked much of his party's lockstep agreement with Trump, posted on X after the operation.
"VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it's about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for."
Sen. Rand Paul, also a Kentucky Republican, who often criticises military interventions, said "time will tell if regime change in Venezuela is successful without significant monetary or human cost".
"Easy enough to argue such policy when the action is short, swift and effective but glaringly less so when that unitary power drains of us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, such as occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam," he wrote on social media.
In addition to the Venezuela operation, Trump is preparing to take the helm of an as-yet unformed Board of Peace to run post-war Gaza, involving the United States in yet another Mideast engagement for possibly decades to come.
And yet, as both the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences ultimately proved, no amount of planning guarantees success.
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