WASHINGTON, DC – On January 3, six years ago, Qasem Soleimani—the Iranian major general and commander of the Quds Force—was killed by a U.S. drone strike ordered by President Donald J. Trump. On that same day, Trump publicly reiterated his intention to capture Venezuela’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro. The coincidence passed quickly through the news cycle, but it revealed something enduring: power was no longer speaking the cautious language of balance. It was acting first, explaining later.
Weeks after Soleimani’s death, I was in Singapore attending the 8th Fullerton Forum on Security in early 2020. There, I asked Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Defense, Heng Chee How, about the assassination and its implications for multilateralism. His response was measured, almost reluctant. He spoke of instability, of unintended consequences, and of how difficult it had become to translate multilateral ideals into operational reality. At one point, he paused and said, “Multilateralism is a long word.” It was not a dismissal. It was a diagnosis.
What has emerged since then is a world governed by two simultaneous logics captured during my research for the forthcoming book Winds of Change (2026), published by World Scientific Singapore. One speaks openly of rules, institutions, and collective responsibility. The other works quietly, sustaining proxies, shielding illicit networks, and tolerating disorder when it serves strategic ends. Between these two logics, global order survives—but only narrowly, and without conviction.
The killing of Soleimani was justified as a necessary response to Iran’s escalating attacks against U.S. interests. The recent operation targeting Nicolás Maduro’s network follows the same reasoning. The language has changed little: decisive action, imminent threat, lives saved. In both cases, American military power was displayed with precision and confidence. And in both cases, the argument was not about ideology, but containment—about preventing instability from becoming permanent.
In Venezuela, the justification has been explicit. The Maduro regime is framed not merely as authoritarian, but as criminal—sustained through narcotics trafficking, illicit gold, arms flows, and human exploitation. As President Trump stated, U.S. military action in Venezuela was “saving lives” because drug trafficking had grown “so out of control.” The operation was presented not as a conquest, but as an intervention against decay.
Beneath this reasoning lies a broader strategic design. The Western Hemisphere is no longer treated as a passive geography, but as a contested space. The reassertion of what is now described as a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine reflects a belief that ambiguity has become dangerous. The aim is clear: to prevent extra-regional powers—particularly China and Russia—from embedding themselves through economic leverage, security partnerships, or proxy regimes. Hemispheric defense, long discussed in national defense strategy documents, is now being operationalized without apology.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio underscored this shift during a recent press briefing. His warning—“Don’t play games, not with this President”—was striking not only for its bluntness, but for its audience. It was directed as much at allies accustomed to quiet accommodations as at adversaries testing limits. The era of strategic patience, the message suggested, has ended.
President Trump has since declared that the United States will now “run” Venezuela constitutionally. Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has assumed the presidency on an interim basis. Yet Rodríguez, herself under U.S. sanctions, lacks consensus within the ruling coalition and offers no guarantee of stability. The most probable outcome is the invocation of constitutional authority to call new elections within thirty days. The irony is difficult to ignore: a system accused of stealing the 2024 election may now be entrusted with administering another.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, María Corina Machado, has called this moment what it is—a rupture. “Venezuelans, the hour of freedom has arrived,” she declared, urging the immediate installation of Edmundo González Urrutia as president and calling on the military to align with constitutional legitimacy. Most Western governments regard González as the rightful winner of the disputed 2024 election.
Machado’s language is resolute but unsentimental. She frames the Maduro regime not as an abstraction, but as a structure of crime—one sustained by drug trafficking, gold smuggling, arms dealing, and human exploitation. These networks, she argues, must be dismantled not rhetorically, but materially. It is a diagnosis rooted in lived experience rather than ideology.
I have admired Machado not only as a fellow member of the Young Global Leaders community, but for the values she represents: clarity without theatrics, courage without illusion. In a region accustomed to grand promises and quiet failures, her insistence on accountability stands out.
Trump, for his part, has been unequivocal: only a “safe and judicious transition” constitutes real change—one essential to U.S. strategic interests and long overdue for the Venezuelan people. On oil, his position has been candid. He has spoken openly about restoring U.S. energy companies expelled during Venezuela’s 1976 nationalization. This, however, will not happen overnight. Stability must precede investment, and legitimacy must precede stability. No serious company will return without a reliable legal framework and a secure operating environment.
In the interim, Washington retains multiple policy levers: permitting the export of oil already loaded onto tankers, allowing Venezuela to sell oil at market prices, and expanding licenses to maximize national revenue. Each option is presented as pragmatic, conditional, and reversible. Yet all depend on a single prerequisite—political order.
Here, the lesson of multilateralism returns. Order imposed by force may arrest chaos, but it does not resolve it. Institutions can be rebuilt, but trust cannot be commanded. Elections can be scheduled, but legitimacy must be earned. History is unsparing on this point. It records not intentions, but outcomes.
Perhaps the task of our time is not to remake the world, but to prevent it from destroying itself. The United States now acts as though prevention requires decisiveness unencumbered by hesitation. Perhaps it does. Or maybe this, too, will become another chapter in the long record of power mistaking control for resolution.
What is certain is this: multilateralism, that “long word,” has not disappeared. It has simply been postponed. And postponement carries its own risks. A world governed only by force may achieve order, but it will be an order without consent—and therefore without endurance.
In Venezuela, as in Iran before it, the question is not whether power can act. It can. The question is whether, once the noise fades and the symbols are removed, something resembling justice can remain. History offers no assurances. It offers only responsibility—for those who act, and for those who choose not to.
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is the Foreign Affairs Editor at Global Strat View. He is the Executive Director of South Asia Foresight Network(SAFN), Washington, D.C., and the author of Winds of Change: Geopolitics at the Crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, published by World Scientific(2026).
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