After weeks of pressure at sea and entreaties to talk, US President Donald Trump has announced the capture of Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro.
How this development plays out is up in the air. Venezuela's Defence Minister, Vladimir Padrino, is vowing that the Chavista regime will not buckle to US pressure.
In the Arab world, the US has been at this point before with military interventions against Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi in the first and second decades of this century.
Unlike the reported events in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, the US was at pains not to intervene directly to bring down Qaddafi in 2011. In Tripoli there were months of a phoney-war atmosphere as the fighter planes and missile carriers of the Nato operation carried out strikes.
The Libyan capital was, in fact, vulnerable to the type of operation that has been authorised by Mr Trump in the Venezuelan mega-city.
From a high floor in the tower of the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli I looked down on the empty car park where a lone gunner on an anti-aircraft three-wheeler fired blindly into the night sky in mid-March.
Within Tripoli it was common knowledge where the Brotherly Leader and his coterie of sons lived and operated with their entourage.
The rumoured tunnels that connected hotels near the foreign ministry to exit points that allowed a quick escape from the city were well known too.
The officials loyal to the Qaddafi regime, which had operated since 1969, worked hard to mobilise tribes and the city’s southern suburbs to provide and aura of support in the capital for weeks under the Nato bombardment.
Muammar Gaddafi at a military parade in 1999. Getty Images.
US president Barack Obama was “leading from behind”, allowing France and the UK to orchestrate a gradual takeover of the Libyan coast using rebel units co-ordinated with a network of Thuraya satellite phones. Operation Unified Protector, as the Nato planners called it, wanted the 40-plus years of Qaddafi rule to crack under Libyan pressure.
It took until mid-autumn for the fleeing leader to meet his
Continue Reading on The National UAE
This preview shows approximately 15% of the article. Read the full story on the publisher's website to support quality journalism.