What the US did in Venezuela normalises power grabs: Expert

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The abduction of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro was an attack by the United States that skirted not only international law but also US political limits, an analyst says.

It is part of the US’s “new imperialistic era” centred on oil and strategic interests and risks normalising similar actions by other powers, Sultan Barakat, senior professor at the College of Public Policy at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, told Al Jazeera.

The illegality of Trump’s action

International law is clear on what the US did, Barakat said: It’s illegal.

A state cannot seize or remove the leader of another sovereign state unless the United Nations Security Council authorises the use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

The 2011 intervention in Libya when the country’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi was deposed had Security Council authorisation.

“But even then, it should not [have been] at all about regime change. It [can only be] in defence of a prosecuted people … to prevent genocide, to prevent crimes against humanity,” Barakat said.

In Iraq, a US-led coalition invoked what turned out to be unfounded allegations of weapons of mass destruction as justification to invade the country and topple President Saddam Hussein without initial UN authorisation.

Yet “when they captured [Hussein], they did not attempt to extract him from Iraq. They tried him inside Iraq,” he said.

Post‑9/11, Barakat said, international law has allowed cross‑border actions against “terrorist groups” when such actions are used to prevent “terrorist operations” in the acting state’s territory.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Trump for New Year’s Eve, there were discussions between the pair attempting to link Maduro to Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinian groups in the hopes he could be labelled under the US Terrorism Act, which Barakat called tenuous attempts to “borrow” legitimacy from existing counterterrorism mechanisms.

Jurisdictional hook?

International law regards military action on the territory of another state without its consent as a violation of that state’s sovereignty, Barakat said.

In some conflicts, intervening states justified their actions by asserting consent from a sovereign state, such as in Syria, where operations against ISIL (ISIS) were presented as occurring with the Syrian government’s blessing, he said.

In Venezuela, the US is instead leaning on a US domestic court indictment from 2020, accusing Maduro of drug trafficking as a jurisdictional hook.

But using a US indictment to justify abducting a foreign head of state from his country is problematic, Barakat said. Normally, a suspect is detained in the state asserting jurisdiction or extradited through Interpol and international agreements.

While Trump has shown “total disregard” for international law and backs Netanyahu, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the US president is now citing ICC processes against Maduro, Barakat added.

The legality of the US abduction of Maduro will be under the spotlight at the UN Security Council on Monday, but Washington is unlikely to face strong criticism from its allies, who oppose Maduro.

Russia, China and other Venezuela allies have accused the US of violating international law. European states have called for respect of international law without calling out Washington.

Testing the limits of international norms

The Venezuela operation carries particular weight in the Middle East, where Israel has conducted abductions for decades, kidnapping individuals abroad (such as Nazi war criminals in Argentina) and trying them in Israel, Barakat said.

The analyst argued that Israel and the US learn from each other, with one’s impunity reinforcing the other’s confidence in justifying similar actions.

During Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Netanyahu invoked US and British actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as precedents for using force against people he dubbed “terrorists”, Barakat explained.

“Now in the US, I think they will probably use the Israeli precedent as a justification for what they’ve done [in Venezuela],” he said.

By this logic, other states could also try to detain Israeli leaders for violations of international law. However, while several ICC member states said they would arrest Netanyahu in their countries, they lack the “guts” to conduct a US-style cross‑border extraction, Barakat said.

Meanwhile, the US operation in Venezuela could give Russia and China justification for similar extraterritorial seizures, the analyst said.

“If I were [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, I would be now thinking, how can I get Zelensky?” said Barakat, adding that China could attempt something similar regarding Taiwan.

The precedent set in Venezuela fundamentally weakens the current international order, Barakat emphasised.

If China, as an emerging global power, responds to global crises militarily rather than through economic influence as it has been or if more states pursue nuclear weapons, a genuinely new world order – possibly bipolar and more confrontational – could emerge, the professor said.

“I think that it seems the only way to independent politics is to have a nuclear weapon. Then things will change dramatically.”

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