The removal of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro from power is a watershed moment for the United States, the Western Hemisphere, and a world that has grown far too accustomed to tolerating narco-states masquerading as sovereign governments. Maduro presided over one of the most corrupt, brutal, and destabilizing regimes of the modern era, one that hollowed out Venezuela’s economy, drove millions into exile, partnered openly with transnational criminal networks, and flooded the hemisphere with illegal narcotics. The world is safer with him out of power.

The Trump administration deserves credit for accomplishing what years of half-measures, diplomatic indulgence, and rhetorical condemnations failed to achieve. It recognized the Maduro regime for what it was: a criminal enterprise operating behind the façade of government and acted decisively. Moral clarity and strategic resolve mattered, and in this case, they produced results.

For years, Americans have asked a simple but haunting question: How many lives must be lost before the U.S. takes seriously the nexus between illegal drugs, violent cartels, and the regimes that enable them? Fentanyl alone now kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. The narcotics trade does not exist in a vacuum; it is protected by corrupt governments that profit from lawlessness and export human misery beyond their borders. Maduro’s Venezuela was not merely a failed state: It was an active participant in regional destabilization and a hub in the transnational criminal ecosystem. Holding such regimes accountable is not imperialism; it is a matter of national security. And the arrest of Maduro sends a clear message to Mexican cartels and other criminal syndicates that state protection and political status will not necessarily shield traffickers or their enablers from accountability.

That said, constitutional self-government demands that even successful actions be examined carefully. Victories do not absolve us of the........

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