Nepal, Jan. 5 -- On January 3, the United States declared that it had initiated massive military actions in Venezuela, seized President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transported them to New York to be prosecuted. Maduro, perceived as an autocrat who carved out the democratic institutions and seen as a rebellious figure in Latin American opposition to Washington, was at the centre of the spectacle, which is profoundly disturbing. An incumbent president captured in one of the foreign military operations is not merely another melodramatic story in an already shaken world. It is an instance that subtly redefines the limits of permissible authority.

For Nepal, a small non-aligned country which has historically relied on the g...