Subject: Re: Venezuela - Who and How
But most of Europe is also deeply upset by how the operation was conducted, even as they struggle with how to balance that with their support for the result.

Either laws and sanctions mean something or they don't. I seriously doubt Trump loses any sleep over it.

With military special forces and the support of the U.S. Navy, right? Conducted by the U.S. Defense Depar...excuse me, Department of War, right? The normal course for international law enforcement is for such matters to be handled by civilian authorities - not the use of military forces.

The military helps out law enforcement literally all the time. You do know that DEA agents fly around in Army helicopters in Colombia as a matter of course, right? And that the Coast Guard routinely uses Navy assets?

Removing Venezuela (assuming you're speaking figuratively) would do most of that...but we haven't removed Venezuela. We've removed Maduro. Which doesn't remove Venezuela from anything.

Time will tell. Lambo just posted an interesting thread that disproves the "Rodriguez is a Maduro hardliner" notion:
A group of senior Venezuelan government officials, led by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, who is president of the National Assembly, have quietly promoted a series of initiatives in recent months aimed at presenting themselves to Washington as a “more acceptable” alternative to Nicolás Maduro’s regime, according to people with direct knowledge of the talks.

...now that we've demonstrated who has the upper hand in the region, are they more likely or less likely to want to make some kind of deal?

He was saying that even though the U.S. didn't recognize that the Maduro government was the de jeure government of Venezuela, they were the de facto government of Venezuela - which meant that the U.S. had to deal with representatives of that government (ie. the guy at the airport) even while claiming that Maduro wasn't really the President. Because even though he wasn't really the President, he was the one who was actually being treated as the President by everyone in the country.

No. If Maduro had any real grip on the country the guy at the airport doesn't even answer the phone and the planes don't get to land.