The US raid to capture Venezuela's president has sparked talk within Iran's elite about a similar "solution": removing Supreme Leader Khamenei to appease protestors and preserve the system, rather than allowing it to collapse entirely under external and internal pressure.

According to Maria Corina Machado, Nicolás Maduro's rise to power was not an internal decision but a direct choice by the Cuban government. Having been trained in Cuba and demonstrating total loyalty to the Castro regime, Maduro was selected to ensure Cuba's continued influence and control over Venezuela.

The Trump administration is depicted as ignoring Venezuela's legitimately elected opposition leader and instead choosing to work with the former vice president. This suggests a strategy prioritizing controllable stability with a regime figure over supporting a democratically elected but potentially less predictable leader.

The U.S. action in Venezuela should be viewed as 'regime alteration.' Unlike the failed Iraq strategy of dismantling a state, this was a targeted move to swap a leader aligned with China and Russia for one answerable to the U.S. It’s a pragmatic assertion of influence, not an idealistic attempt at democratization.

The U.S. strategy appears to be maintaining a weakened Chavista regime to ensure stability and access to oil, effectively turning Venezuela into a resource colony without genuine political change for its people.

The recent regime change in Venezuela is not a clean break; the acting president was Maduro's VP, and the existing Chavista structure remains. The US administration is prioritizing stability and oil development with this existing framework, creating uncertainty for bondholders. The path to a debt restructuring is now unclear, as it's unknown how quickly or fairly creditors will be prioritized in this new bilateral arrangement.

Instead of pursuing overt regime change or democracy promotion, a more effective U.S. policy is 'political deterrence.' This involves exploiting the inherent rivalries and disaffection within authoritarian regimes to throw them off balance, creating leverage for negotiations from a position of strength.

The US action to remove Maduro was not a traditional regime change. The goal was to eliminate the leader personally while leaving his party and government apparatus largely intact, suggesting a strategic choice to avoid the instability of a full power vacuum.

By leaving the existing Chavista power structure largely intact after removing Maduro, the U.S. is applying a key lesson from Iraq: avoiding a power vacuum and the chaos of de-Ba'athification is paramount for stability.