Ben Rhodes

I mean, and I'm trying to, I mean, it is literally like, you know, if you removed like Mullah Omar from the Taliban, but left the entire Taliban in charge of Afghanistan after 9-11.

I mean, that's, and again, the apples to oranges, I'm not suggesting that this is the Taliban, but it's the same thing.

Like that, the same regime is governing Afghanistan.

it was a decapitation more than was a total regime change with this idea that the United States is now going to be able to call the shots and run the country.

And I just don't, by the way, I don't believe that that's going to happen either.

So we can get to that, but I don't think their plan is going to work.

I think that assessment is the right one about from the CIA.

Essentially, the problem is the military that buttresses this regime is not going to want to work with Maria Machado.

Essentially, they control things.

She's their enemy.

She wants to dismantle the security apparatus of the regime.

And so therefore, there's kind of an all or nothing question.

If you get rid of the regime entirely, if you say Machado has to be president, well, then those people are going to fight.

And then you're going to be in some kind of civil conflict very quickly.

And so, yes, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, absent more U.S.

military force going in to put Maria Machado or Emendo Gonzalez, her proxy who won the last election, according to international monitors, in charge right away.

That makes sense to me.

However, I think what's interesting is there's no discussion of even the third option, because what you would normally do...

is you'd say, OK, this is a problem.

We have a regime that doesn't have a lot of legitimacy to the people.