Mark Mazzetti

is considering putting together some kind of coalition of allied troops like we did after 9-11?

It is very, very hard to envision the Trump administration...

authorizing large-scale American military presence in Iran with an indefinite future.

It is against what Trump has said he believes in, which is quick use of American military power that sends a message and then you move on.

And that was why the Venezuela operation was the sort of platonic ideal of a Trump military operation.

And anything involving long, costly, messy operations

regime change, boots on the ground operations with indefinite outcomes is not really what President Trump's all about.

OK, but that's kind of my question, though.

Like, let's say that through some kind of combination of a campaign of attacks by the U.S., Israel, plus whatever kind of uprising we might see from Iranians, let's say the regime falls.

What do we think would happen next?

I assume that you do not think that there would be some kind of peaceful transfer of power to a democratic form of government.

That also sounds like the recipe for the kind of power vacuum that leads to chaos after U.S.

intervention.

Right.

And we've seen this before.

We have seen this in Iraq.

We've seen this in Afghanistan.

And obviously, this is something that a lot of Americans do not want.

Yeah, and from the sound of it, President Trump wants to wash his hands of whatever comes next, right?

He said on Saturday morning, the United States has gotten rid of your bad leaders.