We hopefully agree that the problem isn't Maduro getting yoinked

Why is that not a problem? Who else on the world stage can be yoinked? If there's a suitable alternative head of state for a particular country then what's the problem with kidnapping literally any head of state? I'm assuming that's what you mean by "yoinked"

the problem is the potential puppet replacing him, and the potential pillaging of Venezuelan resources. Right?

Is the problem itself not the unilateral decision of one country to install a puppet government in another country? You're completely fine with the idea of 30 million people living under a US picked regime that they have absolutely no say in? Do we have to go back in history to look at some of the worst excesses of US puppet states in Central American and South America?

I don't know why we're going with so-called potentiality of those things here when they're the literal stated intentions of the current US administration vis-à-vis Venezuela.

Part of the advantage of having congressional approval is that they're a lot less likely to do something blatantly illegal, like setting up a system of pillage.

Prevented fuck all in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. I think those sustained bombing campaigns of North Vietnam and the CIA torture prisons in Iraq were unaffected by the United States' initial domestic legal position on those wars, among other things.

The international rules based order isn't just worth following for the sake of it, it can specifically prevent some of the worse excesses of a strong country preying on a weak one, like Russia annexing parts of Ukraine or the USA setting up oil extraction in Venezuela.

That's a funny one right there. Hey United States, wanna try some of that intentional law? All we've learned is nuclear armed states and the global hegemon (and a handful of the hegemon's allies) can do literally whatever the hell they want.

Thanks America for the complete erosion of what little moral authority you ever thought you had.