Why Did We Do That?

It's hard to justify the assault on Venezuela. The next ones will be even harder.

A few weeks ago, I wrote here about the Trump administration using suspension of disbelief to keep congressional Republicans from asserting their power. It works, I wrote, much like when a science fiction story requires the reader to believe in interstellar travel or magic amulets, just for the purpose of this tale. Similarly, the Trump administration declares far-fetched emergencies and terrorist designations, which members of Congress must accept as truth to validate otherwise unacceptable actions.

This is not entirely novel to this administration; it’s not hard to remember examples from past Presidents. Today’s Republicans, however, have allowed Trump to push the practice to absurd extremes. And historically this type of suspended disbelief has always been most prevalent in foreign military adventures, where Congress is generally reluctant (with some good reason) to hamstring the President on that front.

Thus we have the predictable sight of Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson saying that Trump had no obligation to inform Congress before engaging in military action against Venezuela, although the administration barely offered any justification beyond ‘we thought they might leak it.’

Congressional Republicans also chose, almost unanimously, to accept the administration’s premise for taking the action—or, I should say, any of the various choose-your-preference premises and justifications tossed around by the principals. Was it merely a law enforcement operation to execute an arrest warrant? Part of the war being waged on drug runners designated as terrorist organizations? Was it for the good of the Venezuelan people? To reclaim nationalized oil rights? To correct a fraudulent election result? Or perhaps to establish the “Don-roe Doctrine” of US hemispheric hegemony? One or more of the above? Which are you willing to believe? Any will do.

Likewise, the legal justification under international law required suspension of disbelief. It’s pretty clear-cut that this was an illegal assault on another nation’s sovereignty under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and that the UN Charter is a treaty that holds the force of law under the US Constitution.

Truth be told, that whole “force of law” thing has been a pretty dead letter in the US, certainly during my lifetime. Neither the legislative or judicial branches have had any interest in calling Presidents out on it. But again, they like to be given a story to explain why.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz obliged, by going on Fox & Friends Weekend to assert that it was in fact perfectly legal under UN Charter Article 51’s self-defense exemption. Waltz did not repeat that claim when he spoke to the UN Security Council on Monday, perhaps because they would recognize it as nonsense: the exemption explicitly specifies that the exemption holds only “if an armed attack occurs,” and even then only until the Security Council has a chance to intervene. In his UN speech, Waltz spoke at length about what a bad dude Madero is, but never really offered up a case for why it was incumbent upon America, this week, to grab him while blowing up anyone and anything in the way.

Still. an Article 51 self-defense claim is the closest I’ve heard to a legal justification. And, it fits a distinct and troubling trend in international relations. In just the past few years, there have been dozens of Article 51 self-defense claims around the world, “a markerd increase compared to previous years,” according to one report. Increasingly, self-defense has become the suspension of disbelief catch-all for justifying attacks—and Trump has accelerated the trend. The US submitted such an Article 51 report after bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities,, for example.

At least Trump still seems to feel it necessary to provide some cover of a legal claim, however tissue-thin, to which the other government branches can cling. Trump himself obviously believes that might makes right, and he has become increasingly aware of just how much might he has. In a series of appearances and interviews after the Venezuela operation, Trump was focussed on the skill and equipment of the military he watched from a make-shift SCIF in Florida. He sounded much like an over-excited gamer describing the sick moves with which he cleared a level—exactly how he sounded after the Iran bombing as well. Much like such a gamer, his attention quickly moves on to the next challenge, with little thought to the chaos and corpses he may have left behind.

With his heightened confidence in his military, the quiescence of Congress, and foreign leaders on notice of his willingness to act, Trump now senses that he holds all the bargaining cards, as he likes to say. He can now saber-rattle and expect others to back down; thus his rapid threats toward a variety of Latin American countries, and renewed bluster about taking Greenland. I doubt that he intends to deploy the military for any of those, but rather expects to get what he wants because those countries believe he will attack. The ploy might work. Or, he might just back himself into waging wars here, there, and everywhere. Who knows.

This attitude is not particularly compatible with the world order of the past 80 years. It strongly suggests a sphere of influence order with the US, Russia, and China controlling the globe. And Trump might encounter more objections to his next confrontations than he has to actions against the widely loathed Nicolas Maduro and the Iranian regime. But for now, Trump continues to play Risk on his game board and get away with it.