This is what the former MI6 Chief (British "CIA") thinks
The problem with what you said about the Maduro Regime is that it was untouched, and there won't be anything that had done to it with this strike can because this is a one off, the chance of another one of this operation to punish the next person who not fall in line with Trump is near zero, because this is heavily relied on surprise. And with no degradation of military capability with Venezuela. If the US tries it again, it will be more difficult, if not outright impossible.
What this strike did, however, in a pure intelligence point of view, is to expose and burn all the unknown weaknesses, which makes another penetration nearly impossible. And in terms of political structure, you basically make them more resolved to fight you, while I do not agree on mostly what
@MH.Yang said, he said one thing is very true in this regard, you don't resort to assassination (or in this case, doing this) becasue it WILL: make a martyr out of the man, I already asked all the source I know in country, the country actually turned around and support Maduro. Trump can say whatever he wants, but if the Venezuelans sided with Maduro and his "rightful" successor, you don't get the key to the castle simply because you take him out. This is the same reaction done to Trump after his conviction, people didn't abandon him because of this, instead it turned into a political showcase, and he eventually won the Presidency, it WILL BE THE SAME in Venezuela, you can even smell that by noticing the obvious absence from all the opposition voices in Venezuela, even they had distant themselves from it. That's how bad it is in Venezuela.
On the other hand, what you compare the Afghan to the Venezuelan is basically the same; they are brainwashed for 20+ years with this regime and the Chavez regime. That is a very long time to entrench itself in the government, and a lot of work for them to be deprogrammed. I know first hand how these Taliban think, I interrogated a few with my time there, you are expecting drastic change to their core believe once their leader is out of the picture, this is not going to happen, because nobody is buying into OBL (or in this case Maduro) because of OBL himself, this is a cult of some sort, yes, the leader is the person who charm them in the cult, but it is THE STRUCTURE that make them stay, either by will or by force, and in this case, the "Structure" here in Venezuela is untouched.
As for what the venezuela think when the US invade them, you need to ask what will the American think if we invade Venezuela instead, again, the point I made before stand, this ops is made so that direct confrontation are avoided, if we are prepare for an all out war with Venezuela, we won't do this, instead you will see Chinook landing the 3 Marine MEU in country wide Political and Miltiary Strong point to seize the country, but not this. We didn't even do a full count on Venezuela's military capability nationwide.
You can expect anything you want, but most analysts in the intelligence world agree this operation won't lead to anything other than a show trial.
