Donald Trump has taken an unprecedented step in his ongoing assault on the U.S. Constitution and international law by illegally abducting a sitting head of state. The U.S. attack on Venezuela on January 3, resulting in the capture of Nicholas Maduro and his wife, and deaths of dozens of Venezuelan military personnel and civilians, has opened a Pandora’s Box of dangerous outcomes. I have fought in two previous wars resulting from failed U.S. efforts at regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan and am now a scholar of international relations focusing on intervention and civil wars. From experience and research, I can say the prognosis for Venezuela and its people is quite bleak. However, things can get much worse.

It is imperative that the Democratic Party present a unified and forceful opposition to military action in Venezuela or further efforts at regime change and occupation of Venezuelan oil fields. Although Democratic leaders have widely opposed Trump’s actions, few have focused on the most troubling aspects of the use of military force, which include the naked repudiation of international law and limits on executive authority. An unchecked imperial presidency wielding illegal violence abroad will ultimately become a dire threat to our democracy at home.

The Trump administration’s aggression is a full assault on international law, which clearly articulates the conditions under which military force can be used legitimately. Under the United Nations Charter, a state may respond to immediate threats or attacks with military force or they can employ force under the authority of a United Nations Security Council resolution. The effort at regime change in Venezuela and preceding maritime targeted killings fail to meet either of these definitions. By contrast, previous U.S. efforts at regime change have met or tried to meet this criterion as Panama declared war on the United States and fired on U.S. troops prior to the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, the Taliban harbored a terrorist group that had attacked the United States in 2001, and the Bush administration claimed to be upholding previous U.N. Security Council resolutions to justify its invasion of Iraq in 2003. Trump has not even attempted to meet these standards in brazen behavior that threatens the very foundations of peaceful relations between states.

Within the realm of domestic law, the Constitution clearly states that only Congress can authorize war. The War Powers Act outlines the scope of action in which the President could employ military force without Congressional approval, but again, because Venezuela presents no immediate threat, Trump possesses no legal standing. In previous regime change campaigns in 2001 and 2003, the Bush administration possessed congressional approval. In the closest analog to the current case, George H.W. Bush did not possess congressional authorization for the invasion of Panama, but the U.S. maintained a military presence in Panama and U.S. troops came under direct attack by Panamanian forces, offering a pretext for immediate executive action.

The Trump administration has attempted to claim this is a law enforcement action and that the Maduro regime presents a threat to the U.S. through drug trafficking. These are ludicrous claims as the destruction of military bases and air defense systems in Caracas is a clear military action, which meets any definition of what would generally be considered an act of war. Nor does the U.S. possess the jurisdiction to conduct law enforcement operations on foreign soil without sanction by the host government. In terms of drug trafficking, Venezuela is not believed to have an appreciable role in the illicit fentanyl trade and although it does engage in cocaine trafficking, the bulk of this traffic flows to Europe, not the United States.

A better description for Trump’s actions is a filibustering campaign waged through the Executive Branch. Just as white southerners sought to seize territory in Latin America to advance slavery and amass personal wealth in the 1850’s, Trump has claimed the U.S. will administer Venezuela through a puppet government to extract oil. Trump has also justified his aggressive behavior through invoking the Monroe Doctrine. However, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy backed away from the interventionist elements of the Monroe Doctrine in an important effort to improve U.S. relations with our southern neighbors and usher in a period of international politics defined more by cooperation than coercion. Trump is reviving a barbarous form of political behavior that harkens to some of the bleakest periods in U.S. and human history.

Surrounded by a coterie of loyalists and yes men, Trump’s foreign policy behavior is akin to that of a personalist dictator. This is the result of a long process of accumulating power within the Executive Branch and previous failures at forcefully punishing Trump’s previous breaches of norms of democratic governance, or the law. Based on Trump’s statements thus far, his administration’s planning for regime change in Venezuela make the disastrous planning for the invasion of Iraq seem like a sterling example of methodical and thoughtful policymaking.

Political science cannot offer many firm positions on foreign policy grounded in general agreement from previous research. However, in the case of foreign imposed regime change, the evidence is quite unequivocal – don’t do it, because it basically never works. More seriously, regime change often produces extended periods of instability and civil war. Venezuela offers a dangerous cocktail for the worst possible outcomes from regime change, with a fractured opposition, strong continued domestic support for the ruling regime, large levels of corruption and criminality, and a highly armed society. Further, a number of actors, from Cuba and Russia to perhaps China, have an interest in undermining the U.S. through stoking further instability and offering support to regime loyalists in a potential civil war.

The dangerous precedents set by Trump’s actions and profound risk of further instability and violence in Venezuela demand immediate action. Our elected leaders should be calling for Congressional hearings immediately and pass legislation barring the Executive Branch from further military action in Venezuela or efforts at regime change and occupation. Congress must reclaim its role in deciding when and where the United States will engage in war. These are the types of brazen overreach in power for which impeachment exists as the remedy. Undermining and punishing Trump at home will also help maintain the credibility of international law. Military action against Venezuela is deeply unpopular in public polling and we must take to the streets to clearly demonstrate to their elected leaders that they will not stand for such naked aggression. There are many local protests already springing up and these offer a signal to weakkneed leaders like Senators McCormick and Fetterman that the public decisively opposes Trump’s actions.

Failure to check and rein in Trump risk the further collapse of international law and emboldening of authoritarian states to invade their neighbors. The world order established in the aftermath of World War Two faces an existential threat and the rising specter of a chaotic and violent world defined by the principle that might makes right. This is the type of international order which yielded the catastrophic violence of the first half of the 20th century. At home, a personalist leader unbound by the Constitution presents a mortal threat to our democracy. This is a fight we can win, but it does require decisive action and unified opposition. It is imperative that we force Congress to exercise its Constitutional power and contain our imperial presidency.

Jason Hartwig is a member of the Steering Committee for the Mt. Airy Democrats and a Political Scientist specializing in International Relations. He previously served as an officer in the United States Army, participating in combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.