WASHINGTON | Jan 8
When President Donald Trump declared that Venezuela would be “run by him,” it barely sounded like a policy statement. It sounded like a slip. A moment where the mask dropped and the language of restraint gave way to the language of control. With Nicolás Maduro arrested in a U.S.-led military operation, the carefully rehearsed script of a “rules-based international order” did not bend. It snapped.
This moment matters not because it is shocking, but because it is revealing.
Venezuela : One of Many Cases
For decades- the United States has cast itself as the guardian of international law. The referee of global conduct. The voice that invokes sovereignty, territorial integrity, and norms whenever rivals step out of line. These principles are framed as universal, timeless, and essential for global stability. The implication is simple: without American enforcement, chaos follows.
Yet Venezuela exposes the contradiction at the heart of that claim.There was no UN Security Council authorization. No imminent threat. No collective defense argument. The narrow legal gateways that permit the use of force under the UN Charter were absent. What remained was unilateral action, justified not by law but by power. The rules did not disappear. They were ignored.
Washington insists this was an exceptional case.
When Russia crosses into Ukraine, the sanctity of borders becomes sacred. When China pressures Taiwan, unilateral action is condemned as destabilizing. But when the United States intervenes, from Iraq to Libya to Venezuela, the language shifts.
Invasion becomes intervention.
Force becomes stability.
Law becomes flexible.
The principle remains the same. Only the actor changes.
The arrest of a sitting head of state by military force brings this double standard into sharp focus. Head-of-state immunity, non-intervention, and the prohibition on the use of force are not obscure legal footnotes. They are the load-bearing walls of international law, many of them shaped by the United States itself after World War II. Undermining them does not just weaken Venezuela’s sovereignty. It weakens the entire structure.
The Language of Power : When Words Reveal Intent.
Saying another country will be “run” by a foreign power is not modern diplomatic language. It is imperial language. It assumes moral authority, denies political agency, and treats sovereignty as conditional. Critics call this neo-colonialism not for dramatic effect, but because the logic is familiar: power grants permission.
When Mistakes Kill Millions
Nowhere is this selective morality more visible than in Gaza.
For months, Washington has defended international law in theory while insulating Israel in practice. Civilian casualties mount, entire neighborhoods are erased, humanitarian agencies warn of catastrophe, and yet ceasefire resolutions are blocked and weapons continue to flow. When international courts raise alarms, they are dismissed.
For decades- the United
States has cast itself
as the guardian of
international law. The
referee of global conduct.
The implication was
simple: “without American enforcement,
chaos follows.”
What makes this even more striking is that the United States has seen this movie before. Donald Trump himself has openly admitted that the Iraq War was a mistake, even calling it “a big, fat mistake” and a waste. That war was launched on false premises, dismantled a state, destabilized a region, and cost the lives of millions of innocent Iraqis . It violated the very principles Washington claims to defend today. Yet no accountability followed. No trials. No reparations. The lesson was clear: power absorbs consequences.
The End of the Illusion
Fast forward 15 years – Supporters of the Venezuela operation argue that Maduro is a criminal and that extraordinary circumstances required “extraordinary” action. As the US repeatedly treats international law as optional, the United States erodes its own credibility. Each exception becomes precedent. Each violation becomes a talking point for rivals. The next time Washington condemns an illegal annexation or cross-border strike, the response will be effortless: you did it first.
What emerges from Venezuela, Gaza, and Iraq is not a failure of international law, but a failure of those who claim to uphold it. The so-called “rules-based order” is not collapsing because rules are ineffective. It is collapsing because they are applied unevenly. A system where law binds the weak and bends for the powerful is not order. It is dominance. And history has shown, again and again, that systems built on dominance eventually consume themselves.
