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Guest Essay

By Christopher Sabatini

Dr. Sabatini is a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

Over the past month, the world has watched as the United States flexed its military muscle across the Caribbean Sea. It has blown up three boats, killing at least 17 people in what U.N. officials have called extrajudicial executions. It has deployed amphibious vessels, ships loaded with guided missile systems and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region. It has sent 10 F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico. And it has done so, the White House claims, to counter a huge drug-trafficking effort headed by none other than President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.

To be clear: Venezuela is not one of America’s main illicit drug suppliers. Venezuela accounts for very little of the cocaine that enters the United States, and it plays almost no role in the fentanyl trade, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. That hasn’t prevented the Trump administration from slapping a $50 million bounty on Mr. Maduro’s head or Attorney General Pam Bondi from calling him “one of the largest narcotraffickers in the world and a threat to our national security.”

The regime in Caracas is certainly not without its sins. Mr. Maduro is a dictator who has facilitated illicit commerce in gold, money laundering, arms and drugs. He has brutally repressed his opponents, crushed civil rights and democratic institutions and presided over one of the world’s worst economic catastrophes. Roughly eight million people have fled the country since he came to power in 2013. But the threat that Venezuela’s drug trafficking networks are said to pose does not justify an American military mobilization this large — at least not convincingly. The real reason for the armed legion, analysts and many Venezuelans believe, is to send a message to Mr. Maduro and his supporters: Your days are numbered.

What some powerful members of the Trump administration want is regime change, and they want........

© The New York Times