Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro have sent shockwaves far beyond Latin America, particularly in Iran.
The dramatic US military operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro early on Saturday will undoubtedly have reverberations far beyond the South American country and the region, including over 7,000 miles away in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Tehran denounced the US raid on Caracas, describing it as a blatant assault on Venezuelan sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Under Maduro, and the late Hugo Chavez before him, Caracas has been an essential ally for Iran and its powerful militia proxy Hezbollah in South America. Maduro’s ouster could soon change that.
Iran’s lost ally
“Venezuela was perhaps the closest ally Iran had not just in the region but in the world as a whole,” Arash Azizi, a visiting fellow at Boston U and author of ‘The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US, and Iran’s Global Ambitions’, told The New Arab.
“[Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei practically said so when he received Maduro in Tehran in 2022, when he also promised to come to Caracas’s help in case of danger,” Azizi said. “This is indeed a massive blow to a relationship that has lasted decades.”
Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, also views Maduro’s ousting as a setback for Iran. However, the depth of that setback will ultimately depend on who replaces the ousted Venezuelan president in the long run.
“If it is another hardliner, then Iran might see a more indispensable defence partner,” Bohl told TNA. “On the other hand, if it is a more moderate new government or even the opposition that comes to power, it could see a significant reversal of Iran’s very limited influence in the Americas.”
Aside from losing a political ally against the US, Iran could also lose its economic interests in the emergent post-Maduro Venezuela.
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James Devine, associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Mount Allison University, expects that Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary will “take the main hit” of any inevitable economic losses.
“How much of a ripple that will cause in the larger Iranian economy is hard to say,” Devine told TNA.
“The profits from IRGC economic activity primarily benefit the IRGC, but there is a trickle-down effect through the linkages between the IRGC’s companies and private companies. It’s hard to say how much a trickle-down effect there is.”
Devine pointed out that any economic hit at present is bad news for Tehran, which is presently facing widespread protests over the country’s dire economic crisis.
“The impact on oil income for Iran is uncertain,” he said. “Venezuela is still pumping oil, so global supplies may not be that impacted, at least so far. There is cooperation in shipping and technology between Iran and Venezuela that will be impacted, but if there is less Venezuelan oil for China, that may provide new opportunities for Tehran.”
The IRGC’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah has also had interests in Venezuela under Maduro.
“Hezbollah will continue to find ways to operate in the shadows as it is also active in countries such as Paraguay and Brazil, without a close relationship to their government,” Azizi said. “But it has surely lost its most important friend in the region.”
Azizi anticipates that the IRGC and Hezbollah may seek a closer relationship with the left-wing government in Venezuela’s western neighbour, Colombia, to replace what they’ve lost in Caracas or deepen ties with Cuba.
“But none of this will be easy, as the long-distance friendship between the two has been costly and not always effective and certainly not popular in either country,” he said. “It has also fuelled a lot of corruption.”
Iranian contractors in Venezuela got rich building infrastructure, energy projects, and housing there. Some of these projects were “white elephants” filling the contractor’s pockets rather than serving constituencies in Venezuela.
“Already in the time of Chavez, there were even some left-wing Venezuelans who were critical of these aspects of the relationship with the Iranian regime, which didn’t share the socialist perspective of Chavez,” Azizi said.
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Empowered Iranian opposition?
It’s not inconceivable that President Donald Trump’s military action in Venezuela and recent statements could empower Iran’s opposition.
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website after warning that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the US “will come to their rescue”.
The Islamic Republic has grappled with countrywide protests for more than a week now, which have already resulted in at least 16 deaths as of Sunday, according to rights groups.
“I would expect some protesters in Iran will take heart out of the recent intervention in Venezuela,” Bohl said. “But many of them will be cynical enough to know that repeated massive protests in Iran have nevertheless not brought about US direct intervention,” he added.
“And the US also failed to intervene during the Syrian Civil War. I think that cynicism will probably temper expectations amongst many Iranians that the US is prepared to immediately intervene on their behalf.”
Azizi believes that Maduro’s ouster has “indubitably scared off the regime” and put it on alert, reminding it how serious Trump can be about making good on the threats he makes.
“It has also emboldened the regime opposition, who are happy to see one more close ally of Khamenei fall,” he said. “But Trump’s ditching of Maduro and his seeming happiness with power in Caracas passing to Maduro’s deputy also shows that the Iranian opposition can hardly rely on him to deliver them the keys to the country.”
As long as the opposition lacks organisation and unity, it will continue to struggle to find a path to power, Azizi adds. Devine concurs that Tehran will likely become more defensive.
“At the same time, those protestors who want US intervention will be heartened. What percentage of the protestors this is, however, is still an open question,” he said.
“Historically, anti-regime opposition has not supported US intervention, but this may be changing,” he added. “The net result of both effects is likely to be more violence, something the US probably welcomes.”
Additionally, even if Trump does pursue regime change in Iran, it may prove considerably more complicated and costly than a Venezuela-style decapitation operation.
“The regime is not simply Khamenei,” Devine said. “The regime is institutionalised, and during the 12-day war, steps were taken to ensure a smooth succession process if Khamenei was killed in a raid or targeted assassination. Iran was also able to replace a significant number of high-ranking military leaders in short order.”
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Furthermore, despite suffering setbacks, Iran still has “considerable assets” it withheld in recent conflicts to avoid escalation.
“If the US/Israel intervened directly in an effort to topple the regime, there would be little reason for them to hold back,” Devine said.
“So, unless they could guarantee the regime would be quickly decapitated and debilitated, the situation could get very messy.”
Regime change back in vogue?
More broadly, Trump’s military action in Venezuela signals the administration’s readiness to pursue regime change, something Trump previously criticised past presidents for doing. The US notably got embroiled in Iraq following the 2003 invasion that ousted long-time dictator Saddam Hussein, resulting in years of bloody and costly conflict.
“I think Trump is moving into his own mould of a mixture between George W. Bush’s regime change policy, but lacking the nation-building element while trying to develop an almost imperial style of approaching America’s problems abroad,” RANE’s Bohl said.
“Trump is clearly willing to bring down governments if he believes it is relatively straightforward and can be done in a short period of time,” he added. “He’s clearly not willing to own the consequences of such regime change, given that there doesn’t appear, at least at the moment, a US follow-on force to stabilise Venezuela in its power vacuum.
“So, I think he still prefers this gunboat diplomacy style of regime change that would be very much at home in the 19th century rather than what we might think of as modern regime change with expansive missions and open-ended insurgencies.”
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Devine referenced the US’s recent 2025 National Security Strategy, which plainly states that the Trump administration seeks to “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”
Dating back to the early 19th century, the Monroe Doctrine formalised America’s opposition to European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere.
The 2025 NSS unequivocally declares that “the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere”.
Devine deduces from this that Washington might not be thinking “in the same terms” about Venezuela and Iran.
“Venezuela is the US’ near abroad, where it will impose its will by force if necessary,” he added. “Even though Trump’s rhetoric and threats may be similar in both cases, the actual policies may be quite different.”
“Then again, this is Donald Trump we are talking about, so we can’t count on official doctrine shaping his decisions or actions.”
Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, who writes about Middle East affairs.
Follow him on Twitter: @pauliddon
