The recent buildup of U.S. military operations in the Caribbean marks a decisive escalation in counternarcotics efforts, reigniting debate over America’s role in the hemisphere. Many abroad recoil at anything resembling another U.S. intervention in a sovereign nation. But despite the outcry from foreign leaders and the skepticism of policy experts, pursuing regime change in Venezuela is a necessary course.

The U.S. is not confronting just another authoritarian ruler, it is facing a regime that facilitates some of the gravest threats to its national security.

The Venezuelan ruling elite and its functions for America’s rivals are more complex than many realize. Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello are not merely trying to preserve Hugo Chávez’s inefficient and corrupt project. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela — along with its alter ego, the Cartel of the Suns — commands a sophisticated machine of social control and human rights violations. Maduro is the spokesman for a criminal enterprise that harms America in numerous ways. Allowing Maduro and his allies to remain in power means tolerating a syndicate of crime with access to all instruments of national power.

When President Barack Obama designated Venezuela “an unusual and........

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