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First published in The Progressive, Janury 6, 2026. Read by Greg Bates.

The U.S. attack on Venezuela resulted from having an incredibly corrupt and autocratic-minded President using his office to enrich himself and his supporters, deploying the country’s armed forces against his own citizens, abusing the justice system to punish political opponents, and manipulating the electoral process to try to stay in power.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has engaged in similar behavior as well.

While there is no denying Maduro’s authoritarian rule, mismanagement, and corruption, that is not why the United States invaded. President Donald Trump acknowledged that a key American goal was to regain control of Venezuelan oil, the largest known reserves in the world, saying, “We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure.” While acknowledging that it would require billions of dollars in investment by U.S. oil companies to do so, he promised, “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing.” As with many previous U.S. military interventions, it is based on lies.

First of all, Maduro did not steal “our” oil, as Trump and other U.S. officials have alleged. Even putting aside the question as to whether the United States somehow has the right to another country’s natural resources, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry back in the 1970s under the leadership of a pro-U.S. centrist government at a time when dozens of other oil-producing nations were nationalizing their oil companies. Rather than confiscating the companies without compensation, Venezuela agreed to international arbitration and paid billions of dollars to ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and other U.S. oil companies.

Nor is it because of Maduro’s authoritarianism. The United States remains the world’s biggest diplomatic supporter and arms supplier of dictatorial regimes around the world, many of which are even worse than Venezuela, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Azerbaijan.

Trump’s alleged concern about drug trafficking is also nonsense, particularly in light of his pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was found guilty by a U.S. jury of being responsible for supporting the shipment of 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Hernández, like Maduro, was notoriously corrupt, suppressed pro-democracy protesters, and stole elections, yet the rightwing Central American leader received support from both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have criticized Maduro for similar behavior. Trump has also pardoned and released a significant number of other figures involved in drug trafficking while reducing support for public health responses to drug abuse.

Ironically, Venezuela is not a major player in drug trafficking. Despite administration claims to the contrary, Venezuela plays virtually no role in the manufacturing and smuggling of fentanyl, which largely comes through Mexico. Venezuela ranks well behind other Latin American countries in cocaine production and is not a major transshipment point of the drug to the United States.

Even if the indictment for drug trafficking against Maduro is legitimate, international law does not permit any nation to attack a foreign country and kidnap a criminal suspect. It also raises questions as to why it is that federal courts cannot hold a U.S. President accountable for alleged crimes, but they somehow have the authority to hold foreign presidents accountable for theirs.

Indeed, Maduro’s alleged criminal activities are not really what the U.S. attacks on Venezuela are about: The Trump Administration plans to take control of Venezuela, with Trump insisting “We’re going to stay until such time as a proper transition can take place.” He announced that the United States would “run the country,” that “we’re designating various people” to do so and “we’re going to make sure it’s run properly.”

When asked in a press conference exactly who would be running Venezuela, Trump said the “people that are standing right behind me, we’re going to be running it,” pointing at Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and General Dan “Raizin” Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But Venezuela still has a functioning government, with its vice president Delcy Rodríguez, who is seen to be more pragmatic and less authoritarian-minded than Maduro but is still a committed socialist and nationalist serving as acting president and apparently unwilling to cave to Trump’s demands. Trump explicitly declared that she could remain in power as long as she “does what we want.” Otherwise, Trump has threatened her and other government ministers, saying that if they defy his demands, “the United States retains all military options . . . . All political and military figures in Venezuela must understand: What happened to Maduro will happen to them.” Referring specifically to Rodríguez, Trump said, “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

And he was clear his demands would be enforced militarily, warning there would be a “second wave” of military action by the United States if Venezuelan government officials did not comply, saying, “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground.” Rubio added, “We’re going to make decisions based on their actions and their deeds in the days and weeks to come.”

Maduro made a lot of enemies in the international community during his twelve years in power, which helps explain why, despite few outright endorsements of the U.S. intervention, opposition by some leaders in Europe and elsewhere has been somewhat muted. However, such flagrant violations of international law will inevitably harm the position of the United States internationally, particularly in Latin America, where many will view this as a return to the gunboat diplomacy that was the hallmark of U.S. policy for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Indeed Trump’s new National Security Strategy, released last month, calls for a revived Monroe Doctrine in which the United States would increase military deployments in the region to ensure that the United States will be able to control “critical supply chains” and to guarantee “continued access to key strategic locations” throughout the hemisphere. Trump himself has called it the “Don-roe Doctrine” and declared, “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

The United States currently maintains a large armada of about 15,000 military personnel in the Caribbean Sea, not only threatening Venezuela, but other countries as well. Trump has warned the democratically elected leftwing president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, that he has to “watch his ass” and told Fox News that “something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” also now under the leadership of a left-leaning president, Claudia Scheinbaum. Trump also said that “Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about,” with Rubio adding, “If I lived in Havana, and I was in the government, I’d be concerned—at least a little bit.”

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has been unable to explain how it will be able to control a country of nearly thirty million people, directly or indirectly. While many Venezuelans may be glad the unpopular autocratic leader is gone, like their counterparts in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, it does not mean they support U.S. control of their country and its natural resources.

Unlike the U.S.-made war on Iraq, another oil-rich country, there is not a sizable minority of Congressional Democrats on record supporting war in Venezuela. Indeed, most who have spoken publicly have been in opposition. However, the response to last week’s attack on Caracas and the seizure of Maduro has been disappointingly tepid. For example, instead of demanding that threats against Venezuela cease immediately and holding the Trump Administration accountable for the illegal intervention, the most House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries could muster was that “the House and Senate must be briefed immediately and compelling evidence to explain and justify this unauthorized use of military force should be presented forthwith.”

There is indeed the very serious issue regarding the illegality of the United States attacking a foreign state without Congressional authorization or even notification, particularly with the threat of further war. However, the primary focus of Congressional Democrats appears to be more with Trump’s failure to follow proper Constitutional procedures than his flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter and the brazenly imperialistic nature of the attacks and subsequent threats.

Unless that is also challenged, the threat of further war in Venezuela and beyond will grow.

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First published in The Nation November 25, 2025

Transcript

As US forces continue to engage in illegal attacks on boats in the Caribbean and with the growing threat of direct US military intervention in Venezuela, you might be wondering, “What happened to Trump’s promises to avoid foreign military entanglements?”

In reality, Trump was never the anti-interventionist he claimed to be.

When running for president in 2016, Trump gained support from swing voters, possibly in sufficient numbers to win the Electoral College, by claiming he had opposed the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq and 2011 intervention in Libya backed by his opponent, portraying Hillary Clinton as a reckless militarist who would pursue “forever wars.”

Trump actually supported both military operations.

While Trump has been more reluctant than some politicians to place American troops in harm’s way, he has been very much a militarist president. He has supported dramatic increases in the already bloated Pentagon budget. He has shown little interest in real diplomacy of any kind, instead using threats and bluster and dismissing human rights and international law in favor of a purely transactional approach to foreign relations.

He has appointed Marco Rubio, one of the most hawkish members of the US Senate, as both secretary of state and national security adviser, the only person other than Henry Kissinger to hold both roles simultaneously.

In the first 10 months of his second term, Trump has ordered hundreds of air strikes on countries in the greater Middle East, surpassing the number during Biden’s entire presidency or during his entire first term. The majority of these have taken place in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, resulting in over 200 civilian deaths. In Somalia, where a small number of US combat forces remain, he has doubled the rate of air strikes against Al-Shabaab, also resulting in increasing civilian casualties.

Trump’s preference for war over diplomacy is most clearly illustrated in regard to Iran. The Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities had had their operations severely restricted and under close surveillance because of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, eliminating any means to produce a nuclear weapon. However, Trump broke off the agreement and reimposed draconian sanctions, thereby leading Iran to resume its full-scale operation. In June, citing the supposed threat from these three facilities, he ordered them bombed, the first direct strikes by the United States against that country since the Tanker War of the 1980s.

In Iraq and Syria, Trump has continued to deploy several thousand combat troops and has repeatedly bombed suspected ISIS positions as well as Iranian-allied Shia militia, both of which emerged as a direct result of the US invasion, occupation, and counterinsurgency war in Iraq.

Given the failure of the Democratic leadership to act more decisively in challenging Trump’s abuses of power domestically, it may be too much to expect that they would do so regarding foreign policy, particularly in light of the long-standing deferential treatments presidents of both parties have received regarding military intervention. Indeed, Trump during his first term—as well as Bush, Obama, and Biden—all got away with bombing multiple countries without congressional approval. This has empowered Trump to dismiss any checks on his use of military force, saying, “We’re just gonna kill people.”

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These presidents defended their war making in the Middle East on the grounds that Congress had authorized the use of force in 2001 and 2002. However, the resolution in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was regarding against those who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons,” and the authorization the following year specifically targeted the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Subsequent military interventions have therefore been in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution and indeed the Constitution itself, but—with some notable exceptions—congressional leaders of both parties have done little to hold the executive branch accountable.

By far the biggest outcry from Congress regarding Trump’s war making was over a missile attack in March in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa targeting an alleged Houthi official in charge of the country’s missile program. However, the outcry was because a reporter was accidentally included in a Signal chat group between US security officials about the attack, not because it involved destruction of an entire apartment building with civilians inside, or that the air strike, like the others on that country, were not authorized by Congress.

Since these US air strikes for the most part do not endanger US forces and have been limited in scope, they have rarely made much news outside the targeted countries. Such war making should be subjected to vigorous debate, however, since the United States has been bombing countries in the greater Middle East for most of the past 35 years and has done little to bring security to the region—if anything, it has created a backlash that has encouraged extremist elements.

Perhaps more seriously, it has gravely undermined the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution, thereby reinforcing an imperial presidency. If Trump can get away with running roughshod over constitutional limitations and US law overseas, it will only embolden him to do the same here in the United States.

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First published in The Progressive, November 20, 2025. Also available on the Stephen Zunes Podcast.

Transcript

There is much to admire about U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who recently announced her plan to retire in 2027 after thirty-nine years in office, including her progressive domestic agenda, superb legislative skills, and groundbreaking role as the first female Congressional leader. But we must also remember that her unwavering support for successive, rightwing Israeli governments allied her more closely with her Republican colleagues than her liberal constituents in San Francisco.

When Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1988, she was an outspoken opponent of Palestine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation, and even helped defeat a ballot proposition in San Francisco supporting a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

Eventually, Pelosi expressed openness to a two-state solution, but only under circumstances voluntarily agreed to by Israel—a position she still holds, in spite of Israel’s categorical opposition to a Palestinian state of any kind. She has also condemned civil society efforts such as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. And she has supported Trump’s efforts to push Arab nations to unilaterally recognize Israel, while opposing efforts by the Palestinians to seek recognition and full membership in the United Nations.

Even though the current Palestinian government—which is recognized by 157 countries—has recognized Israel’s sovereignty and demanded only 22 percent of historic Palestine for its own state, Pelosi has insisted that the Palestinians are not sufficiently willing to compromise. The crux of the conflict, she claimed at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) event in 2005, was about supporting “the fundamental right of Israel to exist”—and that their critics’ concerns about ongoing Israeli occupation and repression in the West Bank were “absolute nonsense.”

Over the past two years, as Israel has waged ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza, Pelosi has sunken to new lows. Shortly after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, she rejected growing domestic and international calls for a ceasefire, calling an end to the fighting “a gift to Hamas.” She even stooped to engaging in McCarthy-like attacks on antiwar activists, suggesting on CNN in January 2024 that some of the pro-ceasefire protesters were “connected to Russia” and “delivering Mr. Putin’s message”—and that she would “ask the FBI to investigate” their actions.

When a constituent confronted Pelosi soon afterwards about her ongoing opposition to a ceasefire, noting that polls showed 80 percent of Democratic voters were in favor, the Congresswoman shouted, “Go back to China where your headquarters are!”

Pelosi has also targeted fellow Democrats along these lines throughout her career. She attacked Vermont Governor Howard Dean, then the front-runner for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, for suggesting the United States should be more “even-handed” towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In response to former President Jimmy Carter’s 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in which he warned that Israel’s continued occupation and colonization of the West Bank was creating a situation similar to apartheid, Pelosi declared: “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.”

But Pelosi inflicted her greatest damage against Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts when she moved into Congressional leadership positions, first as Democratic minority leader, then as Speaker of the House during George W. Bush’s presidency. Rather than challenge the Republicans’ disastrous undermining of the Oslo Accords, and any hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace, she backed Bush, alongside then-Israeli Prime Minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon.

Indeed, Pelosi repeatedly praised the rightwing Israeli prime minister, calling his leadership “remarkable.” She endorsed Sharon’s construction of a separation barrier deep inside the West Bank, in defiance of both the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, as well as his much-derided “disengagement plan,” which would have allowed Israel to annex most of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territory.

A 2008 letter signed by Pelosi and 318 other representatives, as well as eighty-eight senators, argued that the Bush Administration—despite its contempt for the U.N. Charter and its support of Israeli occupation forces—was more reliable than the United Nations or the European Union in monitoring the peace process.

Indeed, throughout the Bush years, she tried to push Congressional Democrats to support the administration’s broader Middle East agenda rather than the wishes of their constituents, who largely opposed Bush’s agenda. “There is no division on policy between us and President Bush,” she declared in 2007, “be it on Israel, Palestine, or Syria.”

The extent of Pelosi’s unfaltering support for Israeli occupation of Palestine was made clear after her visit to an illegal Israeli settlement in 2004. At an AIPAC policy conference that May, she referred to the threat of attacks by local Palestinians as part of “the daily reality of Israel,” and implied that the occupied territories were part of Israel itself, giving Israel the right to resist the U.N. Security Council and International Court of Justice’s attempts to remove its settlements in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Pelosi repeatedly defended Israel’s wars on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, co-sponsoring resolutions supporting the assaults, which primarily targeted civilians. One such resolution from 2006 praised “Israel’s longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcoming Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.”

One of Pelosi’s most enduring legacies was a 2009 resolution she authored which redefined “human shields” from its longstanding definition under international law. Where “human shields” has traditionally been defined as “utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operation,” Pelosi’s resolution redefined the term to include regular civilians in spaces that Hamas was believed to have “embedded,” and in so doing, construed all of Gaza as a free fire zone. The resolution called on the international community “to condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders, and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields.”

But Pelosi’s definition of “human shields” was asinine. Private homes, mosques, and hospitals in Gaza are not “embedded” by Hamas simply because Hamas leaders might happen to live, pray, or seek care in them alongside ordinary citizens, as most government leaders do, and their presence in public spaces certainly does not render all nearby civilians “human shields.” After all, given that the armed wing of Hamas is a militia rather than a standing army, virtually all of its fighters live in private homes and go to neighborhood mosques and local hospitals.

In short, Pelosi’s resolution—passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority—put the United States on record supporting a radical and dangerous reinterpretation of international humanitarian law—one that both the Biden and Trump Administrations used as the basis for defending Israel’s two-year genocidal war on the people of Gaza.

Despite all this, much of the progressive press has been largely silent regarding Pelosi’s rightwing proclivities in relation to Israel and Palestine. While her positive contributions and her legislative skills should indeed be recognized, it is wrong to ignore her legacy in undermining human rights and international law.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephenzunes962006.substack.com/subscribe

First published in The Nation, November 13, 2025. Read by Greg Bates. Also available as a podcast.

Transcript

On October 31, the United States successfully pushed a resolution (UNSC 2797) through the United Nations Security Council largely endorsing a dubious “autonomy” proposal by Morocco which would recognize its takeover of the nation of Western Sahara. The kingdom, with US support, seized that former Spanish colony by force in 1975 in defiance of virtually the entire international community.

The US-backed autonomy plan rests on the assumption that Western Sahara is already part of Morocco, a contention that has long been rejected by the United Nations and by the International Court of Justice, which sees Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory and thus an incomplete decolonization. The African Union recognizes Western Sahara as a full member state, as have over 80 countries.

For decades, a series of UN Security Council resolutions called for a referendum by the people of Western Sahara—known as Sahrawis and who have a history, dialect, and culture distinct from most Moroccans’—to choose between incorporation into their northern neighbor or independence. Morocco, however, refused to allow the plebiscite to go forward.

To fully accept Morocco’s autonomy plan would mean that, for the first time since the ratification of the UN Charter 80 years ago, the international community would be formally recognizing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force, thereby establishing a very dangerous and destabilizing precedent to the benefit of the likes of Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Currently, the United States and Israel are the only two countries that have formally recognized Morocco’s illegal annexation.

If the people of Western Sahara accepted an autonomy agreement over independence because of a free and fair referendum, it would constitute a legitimate act of self-determination. However, Morocco categorically rules out giving the Sahrawis, who appear to overwhelmingly favor independence, that option.

The details of Morocco’s proposal are rather vague and leave considerable discretion at the hands of that country’s autocratic monarch, Mohammed VI. Furthermore, the history of centralized authoritarian states upholding promises of regional autonomy is quite poor and has often led to violent conflict, as with Eritrea and Kosovo. And today, Chinese promises of autonomy to Hong Kong and Macau are already being severely compromised.

At least one-third of the country’s population lives in refugee camps administered by the Western Saharan government (formally known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), led by the Frente Polisario, a moderately left secular nationalist movement. A consultative member of the Socialist International, the international federation of social democratic parties, their president and parliament are subjected to regular competitive elections and women are in major leadership positions. Despite this, the Moroccan regime and its US supporters have repeated bizarre, unsubstantiated, and contradictory allegations that the Polisario is an extremist group tied to Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Russia, and Iran.

And there is currently bipartisan legislation in Congress to declare the Polisario a “foreign terrorist organization,” even though the Polisario has never engaged in any acts of terrorism. They have formally ratified the Geneva Conventions and their protocols, and they are a party to the African Union’s Convention on Counter-Terrorism. The real purpose of the legislation is evident in the language decreeing that the terrorist designation, which would hamper relief operations in the refugee camps and undermine further diplomatic efforts, would be dropped if the Polisario accepts Morocco’s autonomy plan.

While the UNSC resolution is certainly a setback for the country’s freedom struggle, it need not be seen as eliminating the Sahrawis’ right to self-determination altogether. For example, the resolution includes clauses referencing the need for a “mutually acceptable resolution.” It calls for “genuine autonomy,” which the Moroccan proposal clearly is not. It also stresses the need for an agreement to be “consistent with the UN Charter,” which prohibits the expansion of territory by force. And, despite the US insistence that Morocco’s autonomy proposal is the only basis for an agreement, the resolution simply says it could represent a feasible outcome.

Following the vote, Staffan de Mistura, the personal envoy of the secretary-general for Western Sahara, noted that while the resolution provides “a framework for negotiations, it does not prescribe an outcome,” adding that a settlement, “in order to be sustainable, be the result of negotiations conducted in good faith.”

The Polisario’s small-scale guerrilla war, while liberating the mostly unpopulated eastern desert of the country, is incapable of defeating the powerful US-armed occupation forces. The impressive nonviolent resistance inside the occupied territory is hampered not only by horrifically violent repressive Moroccan occupation forces but also changing demographics—Moroccan settlers now outnumber the indigenous Sahrawis by at least three to one.

With success through diplomatic efforts, the armed struggle, or civil resistance so unlikely, perhaps the only hope for freedom may be through campaigns by global civil society, such as those which finally brought freedom to East Timor, an independence struggle that had also been abandoned by the United Nations and dismissed as a hopeless cause. If such efforts on behalf of Western Sahara fail, it could mean a defeat not just for the people of that nation but for the entire post-WWII international legal order. The international community must decide which principle will prevail: the right of self-determination, or the right of conquest?

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First published in The Progressive, October 8, 2025. Read by Greg Bates. A text is available at the Stephen Zunes substack.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephenzunes962006.substack.com/subscribe

First published in The Progressive, October 16, 2025. Read by Greg Bates.

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Also available as text on the Stephen Zunes Substack

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephenzunes962006.substack.com/subscribe

A text version is available at the Stephen Zunes Substack.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephenzunes962006.substack.com/subscribe

This is also available as a text on the Stephen Zunes Substack.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephenzunes962006.substack.com/subscribe