Eight months ago, American aircraft launched from 20 bases as a special operations team entered Caracas and removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from a fortified compound. Dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban personnel were killed. Congress never authorized the operation. On Monday, Americans learned what emerged from it: century-long rights to 17 oil fields containing an estimated 65 billion barrels, a 35% Pentagon ownership stake in a newly created company, and a State Department guarantee to purchase one-fifth of its production at cost. Two things can be true at once. The way this agreement was obtained should alarm anyone who cares about constitutional government and the limits of presidential war-making. Yet its strategic and economic benefits to the United States may also be substantial. The president ordered military action against the leader of a foreign government without congressional authorization. He then announced that the U.S. would oversee Venezuela until a transition acceptable to Washington had taken place. Maduro may have been a dictator, and the narcoterrorism indic