The Trump administration had said the United States had a need to protect American citizens by stopping the flow of drugs, essentially fentanyl, into the United States from Venezuela.

Axar.az reports that these thoughts were expressed by Matthew Bryza, former director of the US National Security Council for European and Eurasian Affairs, former Washington ambassador to Baku, who commented on the recent strikes on Venezuela that resulted in capturing President Maduro.

- Can you provide your perspective on the recent U.S. strikes in Venezuela?

Many details remain to be learned about this apparent attack by the United States on Venezuela that resulted in the US, what they would say, rendering, or as you said, capturing of President Maduro. And President Trump is going to give a briefing at 11:00 AM US East Coast time, which is 7:00 PM Istanbul time and 8:00 PM Baku time. So based on what we know so far, it is, it strikes me that this is an action that violates international law. If another country, let's say Russia, had done something similar and flown into Tbilisi and captured Mikheil Saakashvili and brought him back to Russia, I know, having been serving in the White House at the time of the Rose Revolution, that the United States and Europe and many other countries would have been intensely critical of the Russian action and would condemn it as illegal.

- How are such strikes justified or challenged?

The Trump administration had said the United States had a need to protect American citizens by stopping the flow of drugs, essentially fentanyl, into the United States from Venezuela. But in reality, no fentanyl is produced in Venezuela and exported to the United States. And the major drug that is transited through Venezuela from Colombia is cocaine. And the cocaine that is sent out of Venezuela goes primarily to Europe and to Caribbean island countries and not to the United States. So the justification of stopping the drug threat to the United States from Venezuela doesn't make sense.

- What are the potential political consequences for the U.S., both domestically and internationally?

It appears now in hindsight that President Trump was trying to pressure Maduro to resign and when Maduro didn't, the United States launched this rendition operation which, again, appears to violate international law. More abstractly, I just don't understand strategically why President Trump is so fixated on Maduro... I guess the explanation is that President Trump's new National Security Strategy focuses on the United States being sort of the overseer of the Western Hemisphere, so it's a Fortress America strategy. It strikes me that President Trump's mentality in this whole operation is more 19th-century than 21st-century.

One more important point is, it’s unclear now what will happen inside Venezuela... there are many loyal people still to Maduro who now will and are powerful and there are even, you know, neighborhood militias that will try to fill the power vacuum and that could lead to clashes with Maduro’s opponents. Clearly there’s not going to be some sort of a smooth and democratic transition now through near-term elections to fill the power vacuum left by Maduro’s ouster.

- How might these strikes affects Venezuela's allies specifically Iran?

I don't think this raid will have any direct impact on Iran. Though by implication, now in hindsight, we can see that maybe President Trump's unusually undiplomatic statement yesterday warning the Iranian regime not to shoot and kill the protesters—because the US is ready to protect them and, as President Trump put it, "locked and loaded"—maybe he was anticipating that he could intimidate the Iranian leadership after this raid in Venezuela took place, since President Trump was the one who ordered the raid and knew when it was going to happen.

- How these strikes on Venezuela could impact US-Russia relationship?

I don't think this raid will have any impact on the US-Russia relationship either. President Trump couldn't care less whether Russia condemned these strikes. President Putin, for the moment, is relying very much on President Trump to pressure Ukraine to give up against Russia in Russia's war against Ukraine, as pressure—economic and political—inside Russia grows and the Russian people grow weary with Putin's chosen war against Ukraine.