[jkaplowitz]

If the requirement was for the goal of indefinite control of territory, this declaration doesn’t match the requirement even if such declarations do count: he said the US will be running Venezuela during this transition (or “for now” in the particular version you quoted - of course his exact words do vary from moment to moment), not indefinitely.

[dragonwriter]

> If the requirement was for the goal of indefinite control of territory, this declaration doesn’t match the requirement

Yes, it does. “For now” has no definite endpoint and thus states that the mission targets indefinite control of territory. (“Until <clear objective endpoint>” is not, on the surface, indefinite, though if the endpoint is a fixed point in time but one of conditions that may or may not ever be met, it might still be indefinite if the criteria is temporal definition, but “for now” is indefinite by any standard.)

It does not target permanent control, but permanent is distinct from indefinite.

[jkaplowitz]

I’ve definitely seen media reports using language similar to what I said outside of my parenthetical, which I don’t view as indefinite.

I also don’t find “for now” to be clearly indefinite, but I agree it depends on which of multiple definitions of “indefinite” you use, and it does fit some definitions. (Similarly, “permanent” also has multiple definitions, some of which overlap with some meanings of “indefinite”.)

[whycome]

how long is now?

[jkaplowitz]

Depends, but some things it could mean include clear intent to end the situation within the foreseeable future, taking it outside some but not all definitions of indefinite.