There is a certain brand of American arrogance that is so pure, so untainted by the pesky burdens of logic or historical literacy, that it almost commands respect. Almost. The recent proclamation from the heights of the executive branch regarding the U.S. involvement in Venezuela—a commitment that apparently has no expiration date—is the latest installment in our collective descent into the abyss of 'doing things because we can.' When the President remarks that 'only time will tell' how long the United States will be neck-deep in the administrative entrails of a sovereign nation, he isn’t just being vague; he’s being honest about his own lack of a roadmap. It’s the shrug of a man who accidentally set a kitchen on fire and decided he might as well stay for dinner while the curtains melt.

The notion that the U.S. will be involved in the 'running' of Venezuela for years to come is a special kind of administrative hallucinogen. It suggests a level of competence that we haven’t seen from Washington since, well, ever. On one side of this grease fire, we have the Trump administration, operating with the strategic foresight of a toddler with a blowtorch. They view the world as a series of property deals, apparently forgetting that Venezuela isn’t a failing Atlantic City casino you can just slap a gold-plated sign on and walk away from when the debts pile up. The right-wing hawks are already salivating at the thought of a new playground, viewing 'regime change' as a recreational sport rather than the geopolitical catastrophe it inevitably becomes. They talk about 'restoring democracy' with the same sincerity a used car salesman uses to talk about a 'certified pre-owned' sedan with a missing engine.

Then we have the Venezuelan regime itself, led by Nicolas Maduro, a man who has managed to turn a country sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves into a place where the national currency is worth less than the paper it’s printed on. It’s a masterclass in how to fail upward into a total collapse. Maduro’s brand of socialism is to Marxism what a dumpster fire is to a cozy hearth—all of the smoke, none of the warmth, and it leaves everyone smelling like garbage. The Left in the West, of course, will trip over their own artisanal coffee to defend this 'sovereignty,' ignoring the inconvenient reality that the people they claim to champion are currently foraging for lunch in the back of garbage trucks. Their anti-imperialism is a hollow, performative mask worn by people who have never had to live through the consequences of the ideologies they tweet about from their climate-controlled apartments.

Trump’s admission that this could last 'years' is the only honest thing said in this entire sordid affair. It is an admission of the 'Forever War' philosophy being applied to a new theater. We are witnessing the birth of a new quagmire, one where the U.S. enters with no exit strategy because the very concept of an 'exit' implies a finished job. But in the world of geopolitical meddling, the job is never finished; it just changes shape. We move from 'liberators' to 'administrators' to 'occupiers' to 'unwelcome guests' in a predictable cycle that usually ends with a frantic helicopter evacuation from a roof. The U.S. believes it can 'run' a country it barely understands, guided by advisors who likely couldn't point to Caracas on a map if their salaries depended on it.

What is most exhausting is the sheer predictability of it all. The American public, distracted by the latest shiny object or manufactured outrage, will forget Venezuela is even on the map until the body bags start coming home or the gas prices tick up by a nickel. The political class will continue to treat this as a grand moral crusade, ignoring the mountain of historical evidence that suggests U.S. intervention in Latin America has the success rate of a screen door on a submarine. We are watching two different flavors of narcissism—the American 'savior' complex and the Chavista 'martyr' complex—collide in slow motion. The result won't be a functioning democracy or a stable economy; it will be a multi-year sit-com of misery, produced by Washington and directed by the ghost of every failed policy of the last century. 'Only time will tell' is not a statement of mystery; it is a sentence. It means we are all trapped in this loop of stupidity until the next ego-driven administration decides to ruin a different part of the globe. It’s not diplomacy; it’s a hostage situation where the hostages and the kidnappers are both arguing over who gets to hold the remote.