So What Is This Really About?
by: Jessie Simmons
The Government Affairs Desk
Category: Editorial/Opinion
There is no shortage of certainty right now. Depending on who you ask, the U.S. action in Venezuela is either a righteous act of liberation or a naked grab for power. It is oil. It is drugs. It is empire. It is all illegal. Or it is all justified.
That level of certainty should make us cautious.
Foreign policy decisions involving force almost never hinge on a single motive. They emerge where interests overlap, risks converge, and imperfect choices collide. Reducing them to slogans may feel satisfying, but it obscures more than it explains.
If we want to understand what is actually happening and what comes next, we need to slow the conversation down and look at the full picture.
Oil Matters, But It’s Not the Trigger
Venezuela’s oil reserves are vast, and ignoring that fact would be naive. But oil alone does not explain the timing, method, or scale of this action.
Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is degraded, production is limited, and sanctions already constrained access. If the primary objective were simply oil, there were quieter, cheaper, and far less destabilizing ways to pursue that interest through negotiations, sanctions relief, or third-party arrangements.
Launching a military operation that creates legal controversy, diplomatic backlash, and regional uncertainty is an inefficient oil strategy. Oil is part of the background. It is not the main driver.
The Drug Argument Is About Enablement, Not Volume
Much of the online debate has focused on fentanyl, often in unhelpful ways.
Venezuela is not the primary source of fentanyl entering the United States. Most fentanyl flows through Mexico after precursor chemicals are trafficked from China and processed by Mexican cartels. That data is well established, and overstating Venezuela’s role only weakens credibility.
The concern being raised is not about percentages. It is about state enablement.
From a national security perspective, the issue is whether Venezuela had become a permissive environment for transnational criminal networks, including money laundering, safe haven, protected transit corridors, and political protection at senior levels. The claim is not that Venezuela caused the fentanyl crisis, but that state collapse and corruption amplify criminal systems that already exist.
That argument is legally arguable. It is also historically dangerous if applied too loosely. Both can be true at the same time.
Immigration Is the Quiet Pressure Point
The least discussed factor may be the most consequential.
Venezuela is already one of the largest displacement crises in the world. Continued collapse means more regional instability, greater strain on neighboring countries, and more secondary migration toward the United States.
From a policy standpoint, decision-makers are almost certainly weighing whether continued Maduro rule produces endless outward migration, whether state collapse creates long-term regional pressure, and whether a political transition could stabilize conditions enough to slow displacement.
That does not mean intervention reduces migration. History often suggests the opposite. But migration pressure is almost certainly part of the calculus, whether publicly acknowledged or not.
This Is Not a Clean Moral Story
This is where the conversation keeps breaking down.
This is not purely about oil.
It is not purely about drugs.
It is not purely about humanitarian liberation.
It is about managing overlapping risks tied to transnational criminal networks, regional instability, migration pressure, executive power boundaries, domestic political signaling, and international precedent.
That complexity explains why so many arguments sound partially true and partially incomplete.
Why Process Matters More Than Certainty
This is the point that keeps getting lost.
Acknowledging that the legal theory behind this action may be defensible does not mean the matter is settled. Legality is not immunity from scrutiny. In fact, actions taken near the outer edge of executive authority demand more scrutiny, not less.
That is why the War Powers framework exists. Hearings, briefings, debate, and a vote are not bureaucratic obstacles. They are how a democracy decides whether extraordinary actions become precedent or remain exceptions.
Declaring conclusions before investigation is rhetoric, not governance.
The Question That Actually Matters
The real question is not what justified the action yesterday.
The real questions are whether this reduces harm or compounds it, whether Congress asserts its authority or remains silent, whether Venezuela moves toward self-determination or substitution, whether migration slows or accelerates, and whether executive power gets clarified or expanded by default.
Those answers will determine what this moment represents in hindsight.
Until then, resisting instant certainty is not fence-sitting. It is responsibility.
