John Mearsheimer

It goes back to when Fidel Castro took over there in 1959.

So we've long had our gun sights on Cuba.

And I think that in terms of the moment, I think that the Trump administration would like to produce regime change in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

But Cuba's definitely number two on the hit list.

And what

the administration is doing is not using military power.

It's not putting boots on the ground for sure, but it's using our tremendous economic leverage in the region to hopefully, from their point of view, topple the regime in Cuba.

And what we think we can do is by controlling Venezuelan

Venezuelan oil, make sure that the Cuban economy, which is in terrible shape, even when it's getting Venezuelan oil, will be in disastrous shape when the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba is completely cut off, which is what we're now in the process of doing.

So we want regime change in Cuba.

But it's, again, another example of Trump pursuing regime change on the cheap.

I think that the principal factor that explains American military intervention in Latin America since 1900 is ideology.

And it's our deep-seated fear of left-wing governments.

And we're not even talking about far-left governments here, like you saw under Allende in Chile.

That's not what we're talking about.

Even moderately liberal governments

governments really spook us.

And we often do regime change, and we often do it at the end of a rifle barrel, but not always.

Now, just to go back to Venezuela and to pick up on what you were saying, Crystal, you remember in the beginning, it was narco-terrorism.

Then when that argument began to lose its punch, they started talking about the Monroe Doctrine as if China and Russia were taking over the Western Hemisphere.