Ben Rhodes

It really does feel like the Donro doctrine is taking us into like this kind of global roving U.S.

military situation.

conflict, which people may say, we've already been in that with the war on terror, but now we're getting at like territorial expansion.

We're getting at like significant geopolitical players.

It's a, it is a different level of anything we've done since we went into Iraq.

Yeah, I think that was wrong.

And look, I think you and I argued on the other side of that White House debate at the time.

But look, that was interesting.

But I take a couple lessons from that, right?

It was wrong not to speak out forcefully on behalf of those protesters at that time, to be a source of solidarity to those protesters.

That said, I don't think Obama going out earlier and being forceful in his statements about the protests would have made the regime fall.

And that's part of what drives me nuts about these debates online is it's kind of like, if Obama had issued a statement, the regime would have fallen.

Um, and actually the people might then just swing it all the way in the other direction.

Obama told me privately, you know, when the Arab string happened, he didn't want to make the mistake again of not being supporting protests.

So we spoke out about the protest and guess what?

I don't think it was because of our statements, but a lot of those regimes did fall and like, it was a bit chaotic, right?

I mean, so you have to learn these lessons, right?

What people deserve were protesting is solidarity, right?

They need to know that the world supports them.

They need to know that the world's attention is on this.