President Donald Trump meeting with María Corina Machado is not about reconciliation or symbolism. It is about leverage, timing, and whether Venezuela’s long-promised democratic transition will finally be tethered to reality instead of wishful thinking. Trump did not arrive at this meeting as a mediator between factions. He arrived as an enforcer who has already altered the balance of power. By acting on long-standing indictments, applying credible military pressure, and refu

Maduro’s arrest in Caracas fractured the core of a hostile operating platform built over two decades. The Trump administration never claimed it was going to fix Venezuela. That was never the point. The objective was narrower and more deliberate: disrupt a system that had metastasized into a criminal and intelligence platform operating on America’s doorstep. What followed was not resolution. It was rupture. Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro was never a failing state in the conven

Maduro’s removal proved something Washington has spent years pretending not to know. A criminal regime does not require a Normandy landing to break. It requires clarity about what it is, the will to treat it that way, and an operation designed to end, not to sprawl. For years, the professional doubters sold the same story. If you move against Maduro, it will be another Vietnam. If you touch Caracas, the region will explode. If you act decisively, you will own the country fore

The claim that a reported U.S. strike on a Venezuelan dock was illegal or reckless reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how American power is actually exercised. Not in theory. In practice. The United States did not invent a novel legal rationale or contort the law to justify a political impulse. It relied on authorities that have governed counter narcotics operations, sanctions enforcement, and national security action for decades. The law is not ambiguous. The public

The week opened with six Democratic lawmakers delivering a scripted warning to American service members about refusing “illegal orders.” They presented it with the kind of confident detachment that often defines Washington, where speaking about military judgment is far easier than living with its consequences. Their message did not clarify the law or strengthen the institution. It inserted hesitation into a chain of command that functions only when clarity is absolute. While

The newest political performance from Washington features six Democratic lawmakers staring solemnly into a camera and telling active duty service members that they can refuse illegal orders. The message pretends to be a constitutional reminder, but anyone who has actually served in the national security world knows what it really is. It is an insinuation masked as guidance, a prewritten excuse for the next political fight, and a cowardly attempt to outsource partisan anxiety

Washington has spent over ten years being lectured by the same class of foreign policy caretakers who confuse timidity with wisdom. They warned that pressuring Maduro would spark chaos, that confronting a narcostate would destabilize the region, that any assertive move by the United States would summon ghosts from a century ago. They sold fear as strategy. They were wrong every time. And the loudest of them, Juan González, was a political adviser elevated into a national secu

Mexico should be rich beyond measure. It has oil, minerals, industry, farmland, and direct access to the largest market in the world. Its people are industrious, proud, and endlessly creative. Yet under President Claudia Sheinbaum and her Morena government, the nation is being drained by ideology, incompetence, and corruption disguised as reform. The problem is not the people. It is the leadership. The government preaches sovereignty and equality while managing the country li

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