> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?

We won't know until everyone publishes their memoirs. I imagine absurd reasoning is entirely on the table. Given the administration's blind luck with its raid on Venezuela it assumed that scaling up the same plan would function, without realising how fortunate it was the first time. Reminiscient of Blair and Kosovo leading to hubris on Iraq.

Not sure this was blind luck.

They had a few people on the inside, who handed over Maduro to the US. May have been internal conflict in Venuzuela using US to get rid of Maduro.

Maybe US also had people on the inside in Iran, but killed them by accident on the first strike with the "precision bombings".