Republicans say they will not accept Trump’s threat

WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers support President Donald Trump’s increasingly hostile military campaign against Venezuela, which includes deadly U.S. strikes on suspected drug smuggling vessels and the seizure of sanctioned oil tankers arriving and departing the South American country.

But there is one step they are not willing to support, at least so far: a military invasion involving ground troops.

“I don’t think having troops on the ground in Venezuela is a good idea,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told News themezone. “Pushing pressure, in terms of sanctions on oil (a lot of that oil has already been sanctioned, as you know), I think is fine.”

“My views have not changed on landing ground troops or offensive operations in Venezuela. I am not a forced regime change guy,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

But questions surrounding the legality, strategy and wisdom of Trump’s pressure campaign against Venezuela and its president-turned-dictator, Nicolás Maduro, have so far not resulted in significant Republican pushback against the administration’s approach, even as rumors circulate of further escalations and possible pressures for outright regime change.

“Many of us have been asking the president: What are you doing out there?” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “Is it a war on drugs or is it regime change? We haven’t heard.”

This has worried former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who managed the end of the Iraq War and the rise of the Islamic State group during Barack Obama’s presidency. Hagel told News themezone in an interview on Capitol Hill this week that he was concerned the United States would be dragged into another endless war with no clear path to success or exit strategies.

“Each of these wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, [and] Vietnam, they have ended very badly for this country,” Hagel, a Republican senator before joining the Obama administration, said in an interview with News themezone.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Trump must seek congressional approval before starting a war with Venezuela, as required by the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s not what the Constitution intended or what the Founding Fathers intended,” said Paul, who often joins Democrats in efforts to limit American interventionism. “They intended for the war to be, one, declared by Congress, but two, for most wars to be fought in defense of our country, not with the desire to change the government of other countries.”

“If our operating procedure is to get rid of bad governments, I could probably list 20 other governments that are just as problematic as the Venezuelan government,” he added.

Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Trump’s escalating military campaign, which has attracted bipartisan scrutiny, has killed more than 100 people and counting. The Trump administration has not provided any evidence that the ships are involved in drug trafficking. Still, Trump and his Republican allies argue that the attacks in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean are legal and necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, even though legal experts call them violations of international law.

On Friday, Trump told NBC News The United States may go to war with Venezuela, as its administration continues to increase pressure on Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. He also said that does not need Congressional approval to launch ground attacks against Venezuela.

“I’m not ruling it out, no,” he told the news network when asked about the prospect of war.

The preparation for the invasion and that of Trump reported focus about what would happen to Venezuela’s abundant oil supplies, has reminded critics of the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Trump has long falsely claimed to oppose the invasion).

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the most hawkish members of Congress, predicted Maduro would soon be overthrown and said U.S. oil companies should be able to reclaim drilling rights they lost after a negotiated process in the 1970s.

“The oil fields belong to Venezuela, but the property rights we lost must be restored,” Graham said. “So I believe that the day he leaves, which is near, we will have the opportunity to rebuild a relationship with Venezuela that would be mutually beneficial and that the Venezuelan people could live without oppression or fear.”

Trump’s designs on Venezuelan oil have created bipartisan alarm in Congress and undermined both the administration’s stated justification for the conflict (stopping the flow of drugs to the United States) and Trump’s own image as a skeptic of foreign intervention and regime change.

“They believe that the most powerful nation in the hemisphere has the right to dominate every other country. I think that’s absurd, outrageous and undemocratic,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told News themezone. “I think he let the cat out of the bag by saying that he is interested in protecting his oil friends and seeing what they can get out of Venezuela. We are not going to war to protect billionaires.”

The GOP-controlled House of Representatives this week rejected two Democratic resolutions aimed at stopping attacks and “hostilities in or against Venezuela” without congressional approval. Similar efforts aimed at limiting military actions against Venezuela were blocked in the GOP-controlled Senate earlier this month.

However, Senate Republicans have rejected the Trump administration in one case. They included a provision in the annual defense policy bill that Congress passed this week pressuring the Pentagon to release footage of a controversial Sept. 2 “double-tap” military attack on a suspected drug smuggling ship near Venezuela. The attack killed two stranded survivors and lawmakers froze US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until he provides Congress with footage of the incident. Hegseth did so only for a few select members, but not for the entire Congress.

The US military has accumulated around 15,000 troops near Venezuela, the largest military concentration in the region in modern history. The navy imposes a blockade throughout the country. includes 10 US Navy warships and the country’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford.

“This is quite dangerous when you build up a force that he has built up off the coast of Venezuela and make the threats that he has made, and then try to determine what consequences there may be,” Hagel warned Thursday. “You can’t do any of that until you think about strategy. What is your strategy? What are your goals? How are you going to do it? What could go wrong?”

“If it’s about the overthrow of another country, I mean, there is international law,” he added. “That’s not who we are. We’ve tried all of that in different situations over the years, and it all ended pretty badly.”