Trump revives Noriega doctrine, proving cartel dictators face justice while Israel’s security logic stands vindicated globally.
In a single predawn stroke, the myth of untouchable autocrats collapsed as Nicolás Maduro was removed from Caracas and placed into U.S. custody. This was not a coup, nor a regime-change war. It was law enforcement executed across borders—an overdue assertion that criminality cloaked in sovereignty is still criminality.
Acting under a long-standing federal indictment from the United States Department of Justice, authorized by Donald Trump, Washington revived a doctrine dormant since the Cold War: heads of state who operate as cartel bosses are defendants, not diplomats. The precedent is unmistakable—Manuel Noriega—captured, tried, and convicted as a trafficker, not honored as a sovereign.
The 2020 Manhattan superseding indictment reads less like a corruption brief and more like an organized-crime ledger. Prosecutors allege Maduro designed and managed the “Cartel of the Suns,” coordinating multi-ton cocaine shipments with the FARC, arming traffickers, and weaponizing state institutions as logistics hubs. This was not ideological misrule; it was enterprise governance—tonnage over theory.
Beyond narcotics, the regime’s systematic theft of U.S. energy assets erased American property rights in the Orinoco Belt through expropriation, shell transfers, and asset stripping. Sanctions alone proved inadequate. Enforcement became necessary.
The significance lies in the legal architecture. This operation executed a criminal warrant. It signals to Tehran, Pyongyang, and Moscow alike that laundering terror or theft through flags and slogans will no longer guarantee immunity. The same clarity underpins Israel’s security doctrine: when adversaries weaponize civilians, drugs, or terror networks, deterrence and enforcement are not aggression—they are defense.
Predictable outrage followed, decrying “norms” while ignoring victims: Venezuelans impoverished, Americans poisoned by cocaine, investors dispossessed. That moral asymmetry mirrors the selective outrage Israel faces—where defensive action is condemned, while aggressors are excused by rhetoric.
Maduro’s capture is a template, not an aberration. A narco-state forfeits indulgence. A dictator who exports cocaine and misery loses the privileges of statehood. This is jurisprudence with teeth.
