From Bombing Iranian Nuclear Sites to Extracting Nicolás Maduro: Why Trump's Total Enforcement is a Realpolitik Fallacy? (Part I)

By Amaju Ubur Yalamoi Ayani

(Pachodo.org) “Do we have a return of the Biblical giant, Goliath?” Robert G. Mugabe.

It was in September 2017, when former Zimbabwean President Robert Gabriel Mugabe delivered a prophetic speech at the United Nations General Assembly, titled “The Return of the Biblical Giant, Goliath.” The speech’s content was extracted from the biblical story where Goliath threatened Israel. In context, Mugabe characterized Donald Trump’s rhetoric at the time as Goliath-like, a looming threat to international peace and security, and he positioned smaller states, including Zimbabwe as potential David ready to challenge such great power. 

Like other leaders in the Global South, Robert Gabriel Mugabe was known for his courage to criticize Western intervention and U.S foreign policy in particular. The analogy invoked in the biblical story where young David defeated the giant Goliath, therefore, symbolizes defiance against overwhelming power. 

Mugabe’s observation is no less true today than in eight years ago as Trump’s actions continue to pose a serious threat to global stability.  In just a year, we have witnessed a fundamental shift in American grand strategy, moving from the Trump “America First” non-interventionism of the past to a kinetic doctrine of hyper-primacy. Within months, the U.S. foreign policy has transitioned from a transactional diplomacy to the policy of unilateral enforcement, punctuated by the June 2025 “Operation Midnight Hammer” strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure and the January 3, 2026, military abduction of the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the “Operation Absolute Resolve”. 

While proponents frame these actions as a long-overdue restoration of deterrence, a rigorous realist analysis reveals a different reality: these actions constitute a reckless abandonment of the rules-based international order, strategic stability, and the Westphalian principle of sovereignty that have historically served the American national interest.

The extraction of President Nicolás Maduro and his subsequent remand to a New York detention facility is a major realpolitik fallacy. Although the action is being presaged by the White House as a triumph of liberal interventionism, in the theatre of geopolitics, this constitutes a pyrrhic victory of the most dangerous sort. By launching a massive preemptive strike involving over 100 aircrafts to dismantle the air defences of a sovereign state and forcibly extract its executive head, the Trump administration has made it loud and clear that state sovereignty is a conditional privilege rather than a foundational tenet of international law. The enforcement communicates nothing but a clear gesticulation that in the 21st Century world, it is only might that is right.

The administration’s declaration that the U.S. will assume a mandatory power role over Venezuela to manage its infrastructure and tap its strategic petroleum—one of the world’s largest oil reserves should the interim leadership fail to comply to its (U.S.) directives—is not only an echo of 19th Century mercantilism, but also a serious realpolitik fallacy. In essence, the national interest is rarely served by assuming the administrative burden of a failed state. As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has historically noted, “… the legal status of immunity for heads of state is a cornerstone of diplomatic stability.” By discarding this, Washington will be the de facto occupying power responsible for the human security of over 28 million citizens. Instead of securing energy independence, it will catalyse a forever resistance that will induce imperial overstretch. If the objective is really to mitigate energy volatility, the cost of long-term state-building will far exceed any marginal decrease in the price of crude oil.

In the Middle East, the Trump administration’s pursuit of escalation dominance has traded a functional containment policy for a hot war with no defined end state. During “Operation Midnight Hammer” in mid-2025, U.S. stealth assets targeted the hardened nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz, respectively. While the Pentagon claims to have obliterated Tehran’s breakout capacity, the strikes have effectively collapsed the last vestiges of non-proliferation diplomacy.

According to a recent brief by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the U.S. national interest is fundamentally served by maintaining maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s unconstrained unilateralism has jeopardized this by provoking Iran into a corner where its only recourse is asymmetrical retaliation. Tehran has already demonstrated its intent by targeting U.S. forward-operating bases and suspending all International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight. This shift does not foster a balance of power; it invites a regional conflagration that forces a cornered regime to utilize its so-called proxy network—from Hezbollah to the Houthis—to target American interests globally. Consequently, a destabilized Middle East serves only as a strategic vacuum for the U.S. rivals such as Russia and China to exploit.

Perhaps the most profound damage to the U.S. national interest is the erosion of the normative framework it spent over eight decades constructing. When a hegemony disregards international law to seize leaders at will, it creates a permissive environment for revisionist powers. This creates a dangerous precedent. If Washington justifies an invasion to fix a neighbour’s internal governance, it provides a tu quoque (you also) defence for Beijing’s designs on Taiwan or Moscow’s further irredentist claims in Eastern Europe. Perfectly, the national interest is rooted in a predictable international system. By acting as a rogue superpower, the Trump administration is dismantling the guardrails that prevent global anarchy. 

Furthermore, the circumvention of Congressional war powers—conducted without the Article I oversight demanded by constitutionalists—undermines the domestic democratic accountability essential for a sustainable foreign policy. The administration contends that these moves project national power and ensure resource security. This is a realpolitik fallacy. Global markets require stability and predictability, not the shocks of kinetic diplomacy. Human Rights Watch, for example, has already warned that the immediate aftermath of Operation Absolute Resolve is a burgeoning humanitarian crisis that will trigger mass migration, further destabilizing the Western Hemisphere.

At a time when the U.S. faces significant fiscal headwinds, the commencement of a multi-theater military engagement—maintaining a blockade in the Caribbean while managing an air war in the Persian Gulf—is a textbook example of strategic overextension. The national interest is served by a robust domestic base, not by a warfare state that prioritizes the extraterritorial extraction of adversaries over the economic resilience of its own citizenry.

The recent actions of the Trump administration are built on a foundation of short-termism. They primarily provide a momentary demonstration of coercive power, but leave behind a world that is more fractured and prone to miscalculation. True national interest requires the prudence to distinguish between tactical success and strategic victory.

To conclude, the U.S. can utilize hard power to kidnap a dictator or bomb a centrifuge, but it cannot mandate global stability through unilateral diktat. By choosing the path of the revisionist hegemony, the Trump administration has traded U.S. soft power and moral authority for a fragile and expensive supremacy. In the long run, this shift will not foster a “Golden Age”; it will leave the United States isolated, overextended, and trapped in a cycle of attritional conflicts with no exit strategy. This is exactly the definition of a realpolitik fallacy—the mistaken belief that foreign policy actions based purely on power and national interest are inherently rational, effective, and free from ideological bias—when in reality they often involve their own set of assumptions potential for miscalculation.

About the writer

Amaju Ubur Yalamoi Ayani, aka Amaju Joseph Ubur Ayani, is a South Sudanese teacher and political commentator. He holds a Master of Arts in International Relations (MA), a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Political Science, and a Diploma in Civics. He is a regular opinions contributor to national and international media outlets such as the Dawn Newspaper, Pacodo.org, Radio Tamazuj, Sudans Post, Informer East Africa, and many more. He can be reached via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

From Bombing Iranian Nuclear Sites to Extracting Nicolás Maduro: Why Trump’s Total Enforcement is a Realpolitik Fallacy (Part II)