Tonight, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media: “President Trump ordered action—and the Department of War is delivering. Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR.” “[T]his mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood—and we will protect it.”

It appears that the administration is considering attacking another country under the pretext of stopping drug trafficking, in an echo of nineteenth-century imperial power that mimics the territorial ambitions of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.

Political strategist Simon Rosenberg commented: “If Trump wags the dog in Venezuela it is going to do enormous damage to his already degraded brand here in the US. Zero support for this in the public. Will be seen for what it is—[a] transparent attempt to rescue his flailing Presidency.”
——Heather Cox Richardson