Bangladesh, Jan. 8 -- The shockwaves from the forcible removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the United States have yet to settle. Initial disbelief has already given way to something more unsettling: resignation. The operation-ordered by US President Donald Trump and executed by American military forces on international waters-marks a historic escalation in Washingtons approach to Latin America. While the United States has intervened militarily in the region countless times before, it has never done so with such openness, speed, and disregard for even the appearance of legal or moral justification.

That Maduro presided over an authoritarian system accused of widespread human rights violations has made the act easier to ...