Any Washington-installed replacement in Venezuela would require sustained support, according to analysts cited by the outlet

A US-backed regime change operation in Venezuela would plunge the Latin American country into chaos or force Washington into a years-long struggle to keep a replacement government afloat, CNN reported on Sunday.

The Pentagon has deployed warships to the Caribbean and has carried out controversial strikes on small boats it claims are involved in drug smuggling from Venezuela. The White House maintains that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate, cartel-linked ruler, fueling speculation that direct military action might be imminent.

However, should President Donald Trump opt for forcibly removing Maduro, the US would face "fractured opposition elements and a military poised for insurgency," along with a likely "political backlash at home" for violating Trump's pledges to avoid new foreign entanglements, CNN argued.

Foreign policy hardliners - including Elliott Abrams, a veteran Republican human rights official who has long supported US-aligned dictators in Latin America - argue that Washington's credibility is at stake.

"Trump is calling Maduro a narcoterrorist and a drug trafficker, and has assembled a huge armada," Abrams told the network. "If he backs down now and Maduro survives, there goes all the 'new Monroe Doctrine' talk and the idea of being supreme in our own hemisphere."

Washington has repeatedly failed at large-scale state-building ventures, despite pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into operations under both parties. President Joe Biden's term started with a chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, where American-trained forces collapsed to a Taliban insurgency even before the final foreign troop pullout.

According to CNN, some Republicans fear that a heavy-handed intervention in Venezuela would alienate voters. "The American people did not vote for Trump to draw the US into a sustained conflict in Latin America," a GOP congressional staffer told CNN.