In the wake of the U.S. special operations mission that removed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power Saturday, the newly minted leader of the country, Delcy Rodriguez, ordered a crackdown on any opposition to Maduro while facing pressure to work with the U.S. President Donald Trump init ially said the U.S. would run Venezuela and that U.S. oil companies would invest in the neglected oilfields. Later, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the U.S. would guide policy in the country through an oil quarantine and that he would like to see a democracy reestablished. Maduro claimed victory in Venezuela’s elections last year, in what the U.S. later called an illegitimate election. Under Maduro’s leadership, the country has suffered from sky-high inflation and an exodus of an estimated 7.9 million people. On Monday, Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, was sworn in as president and a crackdown on support for Maduro’s ouster followed, including an order that police search for and arrest anyone supporting an armed attack by the U.S., The Washington Post reported.   “It’s unclear what was accomplished, except the spectacle,” said Miguel Tinker Salas, a professor emeritus of Latin American history at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. The special forces operation demonstrated American might, but it was not followed up with a real transition plan, he said.  Tinker Salas spoke during a Tuesday panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a nonpartisan group that opposes “endless war.” The professor noted that power has consolidated around Rodriguez, including the support of the military and police, but added that she must also try to please the United States.  “She has to walk that tightrope between the U.S. and the social political forces in Venezuela,” she said.  Rubio noted in his Sunday televised address that he was most interested in the leadership of Venezuela cooperating with the U.S. to combat threats like the drug cartels and to restore oil production that benefits the Venezuelan people and the U.S.   “We care about elections. We care about democracy. We care about all of that,” Rubio said. “But the No. 1 thing we care about is the safety, security, well-being and prosperity of the United States.” The Trump administration laid out a vision for greater involvement in Central and South America in a new national security strategy released in November that promises to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”  “We want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels and other transnational criminal organizations,” it said.  The U.S. also wants a hemisphere “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains,” it said. While the U.S. is dominant in the Caribbean, China is the dominant economic factor in South America, as a key buyer from large countries, such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile, Tinker Salas said. It also buys oil from Venezuela.  Restoring the oil industry in Venezuela is also an immense undertaking that would take years, he said. The nation is home to the largest oil reserves in the world with about 303 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If the U.S. wanted to secure the oilfields to restore them, it probably would be quite the challenge and could run the risk of Americans dying in the field, said professor Thomas Zeiler, a University of Colorado Boulder expert on U.S. foreign relations.  American troops on the ground would also run the risk of regional escalation, he said. “The neighbors around there would be furious,” he said, noting Colombia would likely be among them. But it’s also possible Trump will lose interest in Venezuela and move on to a different issue, he said. ...read more read less