A former senior national security aide with a history of criticising President Donald Trump has advocated for a sharp escalation in the administration’s as-yet subversive campaign against Venezuela.
Craig Deare, an Army intelligence officer, told Daily Mail he believed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro no longer operated a “legitimate sovereign government,” but rather a “criminal-terrorist entity.” The Trump administration should engage in sweeping military action against Maduro’s dictatorial regime, pursuing everything from surveillance and cyber operations to trade blockades and airstrikes against its senior leaders, Deare said.
His comments come as Trump has greenlit four deadly missile strikes against Venezuelan boats that critics say may qualify as “extrajudicial killing,” a violation of the Constitution and international law. Washington has claimed the ships were carrying illegal drugs and were piloted by “cartel terrorists,” but has not provided evidence linking them to drug-trafficking networks, proof that there were drugs onboard, nor the names of the cartels that are allegedly involved.
“If Washington threatens force, it has to be willing to use it. Otherwise, it looks weak and emboldens adversaries,” Deare said. He stressed that while Trump’s legally dubious strikes against Venezuelan vessels pose real danger, his administration’s gradual push toward a more significant conflict is long overdue.
Deare was dismissed by Trump’s White House in 2017 after he allegedly railed against the president and his aides for their dysfunctional handling of the government at a private roundtable meeting in Washington. His chief complaint regarded the alleged inability of senior national security aides to access Trump, according to Politico.
“No one’s talking about a full-scale invasion,” Deare said. Still, he recommended a full suite of military options that would stop just short of warfare.
“The toolkit ranges from cyber operations, intelligence, and special forces to precision strikes and naval blockades. The goal is pressure, not occupation.”
Deare said the key to an effective takedown of Maduro’s influence will be a targeted effort against the leader’s inner circle. “The idea would be to go after regime elites and their assets, not ordinary soldiers or infrastructure,” he said.
The best case scenario for the U.S. in ramping up pressure against Maduro would be a negotiated exit for him and his lieutenants, Deare said. This would allow for opposition forces to take control without excessive bloodshed.
The fourth deadly strike in the Caribbean this week came alongside revelations that Trump told lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants and military force was required to combat them, according to The Associated Press. That assertion of presidential war powers sets the stage for expanded action and raises questions about how far the administration will go without sign-off from Congress.
The Trump administration laid out its justification for the strikes in a memo obtained by the AP this week.
“The President determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” according to the memo sent to Congress. Trump directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict,” the document says.
“If they want to declare war, come to Congress and say they want to declare war,” said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a consistent and harsh critic of the U.S. strikes. “But you can’t just say it yourself and say, Oh, well, we sent them a note and now we’re at war with unnamed people who we won’t even identify before we kill.”
Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that the strikes amounted to “extrajudicial killings.”
“US officials cannot summarily kill people they accuse of smuggling drugs,” she said. “The problem of narcotics entering the United States is not an armed conflict, and US officials cannot circumvent their human rights obligations by pretending otherwise.”