As for the compelling reason to do it the answer is very simple, to force latam back into the USA’s arms. Remember that between the USA, Canada, and Venezuela you have the vast majority of the oil reserves in the Americas. Control all of that and you control the entire hemisphere.

Now as to whether or not the USA needs to do a land invasion of Venezuela to achieve this control is another question entirely. Given the vast majority of Venezuela’s oil reserves are offshore the USA should be able to just take them out with divers and underwater drones. That leaves the USA and Canada the sole suppliers that matter by sheer volume.

Yes, but in most of those cases (Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua, to some extent Chile), the US regime-changed weak governments without substantial popular support and seriously lacking militaries. Venezuela does not meet those criteria. The Maduro government is not competent or universally popular, but it is not domestically weak. And its military, while old and outdated, does have somewhat advanced and capable Russian technology – particularly in its air attack and defence arms.

And that is before we get to the question of whether there is any compelling reason to carry out a regime-change operation. Venezuela is not a threat to the US. It is simply a country that has no interest in bending the knee to the New Evil Empire.