Mike Baker

Trump did say the administration was not afraid of deploying boots on the ground if necessary.

He also said U.S.

oil companies would invest, quote, billions of dollars to rehabilitate Venezuela's damaged oil infrastructure.

One point of criticism already in Washington has been the lack of advance notice to Congress.

Congress hates to be shut out.

The administration did not seek prior authorization for the operation.

Addressing that concern, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this was not the kind of mission that allowed for advance congressional notification.

He described it as, quote, largely a law enforcement operation carried out under extraordinary circumstances.

And that brings us to the bigger picture here, and some necessary perspective.

As we've mentioned in the past, once the US began assembling such a large and visible military posture, there were really only three plausible end states for Venezuela.

The first was that Maduro would negotiate his own departure, securing safe passage for himself and his immediate family.

That option was quietly explored.

Maduro even floated what amounted to a trowel balloon.

But by all indications, he misjudged his leverage and asked for terms that were no longer realistic.

He hadn't yet grasped just how isolated and exposed he had become.

The second possibility was an internal move that figures around him, military leaders or regime insiders, would decide that Maduro had become a liability and that they would act to remove him themselves.

And the third option was direct US intervention.

That clearly is what we've got, although this intervention may have involved backroom negotiating with one or more of the key power brokers within the Maduro regime.

It's important to say this plainly.

Removing a regime leader is never clean.