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Postmaster: Send address change to News India Times, 1655 Oak Tree Toad, Suite 155 Edison, NJ 08820-2843 Annual Subscription: United States: $28 Disclaimer: Parikh Worldwide Media assumes no liability for claims/ assumptions made in advertisements and advertorials. Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. Opinion News India Times (January 10, 2025 - January 16, 2025) January 16, 2025 3 - Continued On Page 4 TrumpMay Regret Bypassing Congress On Venezuela So Long, Corporation For Public Broadcasting W ith his decapitation strike against the Venezuelan government, President Donald Trump is betting against two ideas that have often guided U.S. foreign policy. The first is that the external behavior of a re- gime follows from its internal character, and thus that the most obdurate foes of the United States will remain so unless they are forcibly transformed. The second is that presidents should get congressional approval for foreign interventions even if they do not believe the Constitution requires it. Arguments for U.S.-led regime change have varied depend- ing on the target country, but the common thread has been that tyrannies pose threats to the U.S. because of their nature. They treat opposition to America as a guiding mission that justifies their repression and excuses the resulting misery at home. Other countries, the theory continues, are much more likely to live in peace with democracies like the U.S. if they are free societies. Leaving Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq after the GulfWar, many Republicans and Democrats concluded in the decade af- terward, demonstrated the necessity of regime change. He used that time to slaughter his own people, attempt to assassinate a former U.S. president, and - intelligence services mistakenly thought - stockpile chemical weapons and make progress toward building nuclear weapons. The fact that Iraq didn’t have those weapons, combined with the protracted bloodshed during the U.S.-led occupation of the country, discredited regime change. But it continued to have advocates. Opponents of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran said that it failed to address the true root problem: the character of the country’s government. Opponents of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro’s rule over Venezuela made a similar case: The government would continue to traffic drugs, imprison Americans baselessly and ally with our enemies unless it were replaced. But that’s not the approach the Trump administration seems to be taking, at least for now. It looks instead as though it is will- ing to leave the regime mostly intact while forcing it to modify its behavior. But Trump’s intentions are unclear given that he said in the news conference following the capture of Maduro that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for a time, and even put in a good word for “regime change” during an interview. If you ask Trump’s supporters why they back him on Venezu- ela while also thinking the IraqWar represents everything they do not want in foreign policy, you’ll get a variety of answers. The most convincing distinction is that this isn’t a regime-change war. The mission is faster and less complicated than nation building. The war was over in minutes. The apparently limited scope of the intervention has also muted any complaints that Congress did not vote for it. While Congress has ceded a lot of power to the executive branch over the years, presidents typically seek congressional buy-in before embarking on large-scale military operations. Presidents re- ceived congressional approval before the Vietnam, Gulf, Afghan and Iraq wars. The first President Bush said that he had the constitutional power to act to against Iraq without Congress. He nevertheless asked Congress to approve military action on the stated ground that it would “help dispel any belief that may exist in the minds of Iraq’s leaders that the United States lacks the necessary unity to act decisively” - and the unstated ground that he would not be the only official accountable if the conflict went badly. This two-step - I have the power, please grant me the power - can be awkward, as when Obama said he had “the author- ity” to strike Syria but still wanted Congress to “authorize” it. (It didn’t, and he held off.) Presidents, especially in recent years, have avoided asking permission from Congress before undertak- ing smaller-scale actions. The first Bush acted in Panama, and Obama did in Libya, without any legislative blessing. If, however, the U.S. gets pulled into a drawn-out campaign in Venezuela, Trump may regret not having gone to Congress first. If that were to happen, the decision to move against Maduro would turn out to have been more reckless than going into Iraq, since that commitment was at least preceded by an extended national debate. Venezuela is not yet a quagmire, and may never be. Celebrating Maduro’s ouster is well warranted. But judging the wisdom of the manner it happened is premature. Ramesh Ponnuru, a contributing colum- nist for the Washington Post, is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. -Special to TheWashington Post I f an organization cannot survive without federal funding, it isn’t re- ally private. This truth is lost on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which saw its taxpayer funding eliminated by Congress in 2025 and said on Monday that it had formally disbanded. Despite being established by Congress, receiving its funds from taxpayers and having the word “public” in its name, the CPB says it is a “private corporation funded by the American people.” Its state- ment announcing the decision to dissolve the organization called the CPB a “private, nonprofit corporation.” It’s true that the CPB was not a gov- ernment agency. But it only existed as a conduit for government money to flow to PBS and NPR stations. When Congress rescinded that money, the CPB began to wind down. Now, that process is com- plete. Good riddance. The United States no longer needs the CPB, if it ever did. The organization’s mission to expand access to information is superfluous in an era when Americans are drowning in information. Radio and TV aren’t public goods and are amply provided by the private sector. Most other rich countries established national public broadcasters in the 1920s and 1930s, when radio technology was becoming widespread. In the U.S., for- profit corporations such as NBC and CBS led the way. The CPB wasn’t established until 1967, as part of the progressive vision of the Great Society. Even then, the U.S. refused to create truly national public broadcast- ers. NPR and PBS are networks of local affiliate stations with varying degrees of operational independence. They have always had large amounts of private fund- ing alongside taxpayer dollars. The societal improvement from the public broadcasters was supposed to be from giving the people what the government believes they should want, rather than what they actually want. They never broadcast major sporting events or “NCIS” or reality shows or Top 40 pop. The aristocratic pretension that the people By Ramesh Ponnuru By Dominic Pino PHOTO:TheWashington Post