Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. There are war drums beating about the United States and the Trump administration’s interdiction of narco-trafficking, maritime shipments to the United States, which we’re destroying. Recently, we pulled over on the high seas a large tanker that had illicit oil from Iran that was exporting it to embargoed countries. And it’s a general picture that the Maduro government, the communist government in Venezuela, its days are numbered. So, the media says, in other words, President Donald Trump is trying to put pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and get rid of him because he canceled the last election through fraud and Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who had been elected, was unfairly denied the victory. And then we’ve had, in addition, about 7 or 8 million Venezuelans leaving. And he not only sends drugs to the United States, he organizes the cartels and helps them in other adjoining Latin American countries. And he emptied his jails and prisons and said: Go to the United States, basically, cause much havoc. So, we have grounds to want him out. Should we invade? That’s another question. Let’s go back for a second to the 1983 invasion of Grenada. It was somewhat similar. President Ronald Reagan had just been in office for two years, and it came to his notice that a medical school there may or may not have been taken over by communists. Americans couldn’t leave freely. But the main issue was that the Castro communist government of Cuba and the Cubans had a pretty formidable reputation because, as expatriate mercenaries, they were fighting as an expeditionary force under pay in Angola. And so, there was this idea they were pretty tough, and they had taken over the island of Grenada, and this was going to be a progression, a domino, which we would see other Caribbean nations shocked by Cuba. And Reagan wanted to send a message: Don’t Ever think you’re going to take over the Caribbean. So, we invaded. The invasion didn’t go very well. People were using a pay phone to call the Pentagon to coordinate it. It shocked us so much that it led to the Reagan reforms in the military and buildup that corrected the problems. But my point is this, Grenada was a little, tiny island. And there were no adjoining neighbors. It was easily supplied by sea. There were no borders that people could flee back and forth across and come into. Another American invasion in Latin America, these are Monroe Doctrine-type enforcements, was the 1989 George H.W. Bush invasion of Panama. This was very much more similar to Venezuela. Panama was a key U.S. interest because, of course, the government had been given by us the Panama Canal, and the elections had been suspended, and the elected president and prime minister had been removed by Col. Manuel Noriega, Gen. Noriega, I should say, and he had created a police narco-state. In fact, he’d be indicted in the United States. He was doing exactly what Maduro was: cancel the elections, reject the legitimate elected officials, keep your position of power through drug money and paying bribes to the military, the oligarchy through sales of drugs to the United States, and then invite in foreign interests like the Russians, in this case; or the Cubans, in the Grenada case; or in the case of Venezuela, maybe the Iranians, Russians, and Chinese, and stir up the pot against the United States. Both those invasions were successful. Panama went on for about 30 days. We lost 23 soldiers. The Left was very angry about it here in the United States. It was kind of a “Yankee, go home” mantra we heard. But are those good? Are those good examples by which we can forecast what would happen if we were to take that ultimate step in Venezuela? I don’t think so. Venezuela is the fifth-largest country in South America by size and the fifth-largest by population. It’s not a Panama, it’s not a Grenada. It’s got 30 million people. It’s got a large military. It’s probably corrupt and they probably would like to see him go, but nevertheless, if we were to use ground troops, that would be a mess. And I understand, more importantly, it’s not like Panama and Grenada in terms of wealth. Venezuela, believe it or not, has the largest oil reserves in the world, 300 billion barrels, and large amounts of natural gas. Probably the largest, one of the top five largest natural gas. In other words, it’s something that the world is looking at. And for the United States to go in there and have a ground removal, I think, would be unwise at this point. So, what would be the alternative? It’s sort of what we’re doing now. We’re isolating all drug shipments, illegal transportation of embargoed oil out of Venezuela. It’s kind of a quasi-blockade/embargo. And they’re going to tighten the screws. What is different about this strategy from Grenada and Panama is there is a viable opposition in Venezuela that I think most people would say represents the majority of the people. And these are candidates that were barred by the Maduro government. And if we ratch up the pressure and cut off the supply of illicit oil exports and illicit drugs, and just keep him tense, I think we can solve the problem without an invasion. Finally, a land invasion of Venezuela would be seen as an optional military engagement, which is contrary to the MAGA base. So, there would be political ramifications, not just by the Pavlovian Left that anything Trump is for, they’re against, but also by the base of the conservatives themselves. 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