US stance on Venezuela carries haunting echoes of Iraq war

US President Donald Trump on Monday issued an executive order declaring the drug fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. He has also accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of narco-terrorism and involvement in trafficking drugs towards the US.

More than two decades earlier, President George W Bush announced the US invasion of Iraq aimed at toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. In a televised address in March 2003, Mr Bush said that the “people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder”.

There are startling parallels between the rhetoric of the Bush administration in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, and the recent language from the Trump administration towards Venezuela.

In a recent interview with Politico, Mr Trump said of Mr Maduro: “His days are numbered." This was the same thing then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said about Saddam's regime, right after the US launched the Iraq war.

Mr Maduro, like Saddam, has been accused of being an autocrat who routinely hijacks elections and jails and murders dissidents. The Daily Show comically pointed out last week that Saddam and Mr Maduro, with their burly frames, thick black moustaches and penchant for waving ceremonial swords around, even look alike.

The similarities between 2003 and 2025 are telling. Mr Trump, who vowed to end forever wars, seems to be approaching Venezuela with the same playbook that bogged the US down for 20 years in Iraq.

Invasion preparation?

The term “narco-terrorism” has become more common in Washington after Mr Trump's designation of several cartels – including Venezuela-linked Tren de Aragua – as foreign terrorist organisations over the past months.

The US in November designated the nebulous Cartel de los Soles – an umbrella term describing criminal networks within the Venezuelan military – as an FTO and Mr Maduro as its leader. Washington also doubled to $50 million an existing bounty on Mr Maduro for alleged drug-trafficking and narco-terrorism.

Over the past several months, American forces have been carrying out strikes on boats belonging to alleged criminals ferrying drugs towards the US. The strikes have resulted in about 90 deaths.

Given the strikes and the military build-up, as well as the long history of US interventionism in the region – both covert and military – concern has been growing throughout Latin America that the Trump administration is preparing for an invasion.

Drugs and WMDs

In February 2003, before the US launched its full-scale invasion, then-secretary of state Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Council, holding a blue-capped vial and claiming that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction.

“Every statement I make today is backed up by solid sources,” Mr Powell told the chamber. “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions. Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he described as one that could contain anthrax, during his speech on Iraq to the UN Security Council in 2003.