Ben Rhodes

We're one year in.

My plea today is it's time to stop that.

I'm a...

Tucker is a fascinating figure to me.

I do wonder, does it tell you where that like kind of log cabin is?

I mean, it's kind of weird, rustic background.

I think you, you summed it up well.

Um, uh,

One interesting thing is that the same dynamic happened in Iraq, right?

Same thing.

You have Kurds in the north of Iraq who always opposed Saddam Hussein, were always good friends with the United States, kind of did everything we asked them from the Gulf War all the way through the invasion of Iraq.

and wanted their own state.

And, you know, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, they weren't going to get their own state because the Turks were going to invade them and actually did invade northern Iraq a couple of times.

And the U.S.

didn't want to fracture it and would destabilize the region and all these things.

And, oh, we need a central government.

And actually, like, I wondered a bit, though, whether there are lessons to take from Iraq of some of the things that worked.

Because essentially...

Iraq, which went through hell along the way, kind of did arrive at this weird federal-type solution where there is a kind of semi-autonomous Kurdish region with its own government.

But they are a part of Iraq, and there are Iraqi security forces that are the predominant security force in Iraq.