History also shows that hubris of the kind presently emanating from this White House generally ends in disaster. The Iraq war was far more ambitious than the Gulf war, which had aimed merely to expel Saddam from Kuwait, not overthrow him and install a new government. But in Iraq, America’s string of easy victories ended. When he ran for president in 2016, he pretended he had opposed the war from the beginning. Trump’s strikes on Venezuela have followed a similar logic: military attacks without significant military or political resistance have fueled greater aggression.

Source: The Guardian January 25, 2026 14:32 UTC