Ben Rhodes

I agree right from the very beginning.

Mexico watchers, I have completely aligned with the view from before this administration took office that they really wanted to carry out an armed strike in Mexican territory.

I'm not sure it was so much this incident

Where the Scheinbaum government showed, oh, no, we're taking action.

If you'll give us the tools or the information, we'll carry out the action so you don't have to be here.

That's very much where she wants to be.

Because also there's a good chunk of the population that wants her to take this kind of action against organized crime in Mexico.

There's a belief that her predecessor did not do enough and kind of left her in a very bad situation.

On the other hand, I think that maybe they got the thrill they wanted from...

shooting small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

And that was enough to prove the point that they could kill at will and bring military force into what had traditionally been law enforcement.

So I think there might be a little, I think there might be less pressure to kind of carry out these attacks in Mexico.

On the other hand, I think that the president really wants to.

Possibly, but the common wisdom and actually what we've seen documented is that cartels tend to avoid action against U.S.

interests to the extent they can to avoid bringing the U.S.

more directly into, you know, against them.

So they see, but look, if their backs are against the wall and they don't see any other way out, you know, potentially they would do that to try to reduce U.S.

will.

But the chances of that backfiring, these are sophisticated people.

They're not