Whac-a-Mole

Earlier this year, a dictator decided to overthrow another dictator. And then another. It was like the old game of Whac-a-Mole. When a mole raises its head, it gets whacked, but another one pops up somewhere else.

Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro was the first to get whacked. On January 3rd, U. S. military forces captured him and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flew them to New York City to stand trial for narcoterrorism. Emboldened by how smoothly that operation went, our dictator did it again. This time he was not alone, as Benjamin Netanyahu had been pushing him to join Israel and overthrow the government of Iran. Cuba is apparently next. In all these countries, the leaders are malevolent, the economies are in a shambles, and the people are suffering. There are a lot of countries like that.

By all accounts, Maduro is a very bad man. A repressive dictator, whose election was widely denounced as illegitimate, he was detested in his own country, and many people both there and elsewhere cheered his removal. The combination of his unpopularity and the efficiency of the U.S. military operation seemed to muffle critics who might otherwise have questioned the right of one dictator to overthrow another dictator.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was loathed even more than Maduro. He ruled over a brutal theocracy that viciously crushed dissent, killed thousands of its own people, most recently in January, and constantly sowed violence beyond its borders. An estimated 80 percent of Iranians oppose the regime, and millions of people in Iran and around the world celebrated Khamenei’s death.

As with Venezuela, the odiousness of the Iranian theocracy seemed to silence potential critics of its decapitation. No one wants to support a brutal dictator who foments global terror; almost everyone believes the world would be a better place without Khamanei; and there is at least the hope that the massive U.S. and Israeli air attacks might lead to improved lives for Iranians. And so, once again, the voices of those concerned about one man abrogating to himself the right to decide another country’s future were muted.

Do not be fooled. Despite this administration’s short attention span, these are not short-term operations. Donald Trump has said that he must have a say in choosing the governments of both countries. Nor are the based on America’s ideals: democracy, at least for now, is not an option.

Oil, of course, is a factor. Venezuela has the largest proven reserves in the world, and Iran ranks third behind Saudi Arabia. Trump has said the U.S. would control both Venezuela and its oil for a long time to come.

As for Iran, a week after the bombings began, and with no clear endgame – or even strategy – in sight, Trump demanded the country’s “unconditional surrender.” Traditionally, you’re supposed to declare war before you call for unconditional surrender. But Donald Trump doesn’t have the power to declare war, a fact our founders made unequivocally clear. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states: “Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War.”

Why did they do this? They feared, above all else, a dictator who would substitute his personal will for that of the people.

Many media outlets do not report the military operations against Venezuela and Iran as  American undertakings. They call them Trump’s wars – wars of choice, waged at the whim of one man. Nor do we need to look beyond our own borders to find an authoritarian leader who instigates violence against his own people and seeks by force of arms to impose his will on other countries.