Daniel Immerwahr

So Noriega was someone who had worked with the United States.

It came out during Iran-Contra.

Yeah, with the CIA.

He'd been on the CIA payroll, which was very awkward for George H.W.

Bush, who'd been in charge of the CIA.

That's right.

And in fact, one of the reasons that the Reagan administration held off on opposing Noriega was that it would just be too embarrassing for Bush.

So he's a kind of classic case of like someone who'd been really useful to the United States and then becomes less useful and then, you know, gets taken out by the United States.

So that's one difference.

A big question, a big possible difference is where this ends, right?

Right now, it looks from the U.S.

perspective as if potentially it could just be a single operation.

An unpopular leader was taken into custody, will be tried.

And I don't want to suggest that there were no more ongoing consequences for Panama for that.

We can talk about what that looked like in Panama after.

But from the U.S.

perspective, it was more like the Gulf War than the Iraq War.

I don't know if that's going to be true here.

Because what could happen in Venezuela?

I mean, prediction is lousy journalism and even worse, history.