US President Donald Trump is weighing options to move against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, which range from airstrikes on strategic locations to special forces’ missions to capture or kill him, according to a report.
US President Donald Trump is considering options to move against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro that range from airstrikes on strategic sites to special forces’ missions to capture or kill him, according to The New York Times.
Trump has not yet made a decision, and it is not certain he will approve any attacks, as per The Times.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken lead in drafting the Trump’s administration for Venezuela. He is understood to be pushing for a tougher stance.
Rubio along with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have privately told Trump that Maduro should be ousted, according to The Times.
Previously, Trump has said that Maduro’s days as Venezuela’s ruler are numbered. He has also said that strikes on land are the next step of his campaign against boats in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean in a purported anti-narcotics campaign.
Critics of Trump have said the so-called campaign against drug traffickers is a pretext to launch attacks on Maduro in a bid to oust him — and possibly occupy the country’s vast oil resources. The administration has declared Maduro a head of a narco-terrorist group and put $50 million bounty on him.
Airstrikes, invasion, assassination — Options for Trump
The Times has reported that Trump’s officials have presented him with three options.
The first option would involve airstrikes on strategic facilities in Venezuela, such as military facilities, with the aim of collapsing the military’s support of Maduro.
If the military would withdraw support, Maduro could attempt to flee abroad or scramble to a secure location elsewhere in the country, making him vulnerable during these movements.
The second option would involve sending special forces, such as the Army’s Delta Force or the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, to try to capture or kill Maduro.
But an assassination of Maduro would go against longstanding formal US position to not assassinate a head of state or government.
However, the Trump administration would seek to justify such a move by labelling Maduro as a genuine target. And the administration has also created the pretext for that as it has declared Maduro to be a head of Cartel de los Soles, a purported drugs trafficking network that it has declared as a terrorist organisation.
The third option would involve a complicated plan to US forces to invade Venezuela to seize control of airfields and oil fields.
Trump concerned about risk: Report
The Times has reported officials as saying that Trump has been reluctant to approve operations that may place US troops at risk or could turn the operation into an embarrassing failure.
The second and third options —a special forces’ raid to capture of kill Maduro and seizing Venezuelan airfields and oil fields— would carry a greater risk for American personnel involved.
Even as Trump has been weighing options, the Department of Justice has been firming up the legal justification for these options, The Times reported.
Any decision is at least 10 days away and will only likely be made after aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford arrives in the Caribbean, the newspaper reported.
In addition to the aircraft carrier, Trump has deployed around 10,000 troops, several warships, and fighter planes to the region.
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