Iraq Yesterday, Venezuela Today, Your Country Tomorrow
The world likes to believe it learns from its mistakes. Iraq proved that belief to be a comforting lie. Two decades after a country was invaded, dismantled, and pushed into chaos on the promise of weapons that never existed, there has been no real accountability. No consequences for those who sold the war. No punishment for those who destroyed a nation. What the world learned was not restraint, but efficiency. If you control the narrative, the rules do not apply to you.
Iraq was the template. The language was polished. Democracy, freedom, global security. The result was millions displaced, a region destabilised, and a generation lost. When the justifications collapsed, silence followed. That silence was not shame. It was permission. It told the powerful that the problem was not the act, only the optics.
Venezuela is not being bombed in the same way. It does not need to be. Modern bullying has evolved. Sanctions replace siege. Asset seizures replace occupation. Tanker interceptions replace blockades. Financial isolation replaces aerial bombardment. The suffering is quieter, but it is no less deliberate. The objective is unchanged. Bend the state, control its resources, decide who governs it.
What makes this more dangerous than Iraq is the lack of spectacle. There are no dramatic images forcing moral reckoning. There is paperwork, enforcement notices, frozen accounts, and conveniently vague claims of legality. It allows the world to pretend nothing serious is happening while an economy is strangled in slow motion.
The silence of the international community is not ignorance. It is fear and convenience. Governments know the cost of speaking out. Trade deals, access to markets, financial systems, defence ties, and diplomatic favour all come with conditions. Challenging the powerful risks retaliation. Staying quiet is safer. So institutions mumble. Allies rationalise. Media debates the justification instead of the legitimacy.
Democracy has become the most abused word in foreign policy. It is no longer a principle. It is an alibi. It is invoked selectively, discarded conveniently, and weaponised shamelessly. When power uses force, it is enforcement. When others do, it is aggression. The distinction is not legal. It is political.
This should worry every country, not just those currently in the crosshairs. International politics runs on precedent. What is tolerated once becomes acceptable later. If a nation can be economically choked, politically destabilised, or openly coerced because it is inconvenient or resource-rich, then sovereignty is conditional, not guaranteed.
The argument that “this won’t happen to us” is the most dangerous delusion of all. Iraq believed it. Venezuela is living it. Many others will discover it. Power does not stop when it achieves its immediate goal. It moves on to the next one.
Silence today does not buy safety tomorrow. It only delays the moment when your country’s name replaces Venezuela in the headlines, and the world, well trained by years of looking away, stays quiet once again.
