Power, Propaganda, and a Reshaped Middle East With Hagar Chemali

Well, many, many years ago, and I now go back to the late 1990s, we had a problem with that regime, and it was overthrown.

Not a similar problem.

That was a problem of very brutal dictatorship, obviously, and there's some similarities.

between that regime and the lack of respect for human rights.

But that didn't turn out too well for us, that replacement of that former regime.

What makes us think that it'll be any better if we replace this current regime?

No, you know, it's an interesting question because it's never going to be perfect.

It can't be black or white.

I can tell you from my time having worked in counterterrorism in the U.S. government, handling the Middle East, that the majority of our threats stem from threats emanating from the Iranian regime.

So it's not the regime itself.

It's all of the proxies, militias and terrorist groups they fund in the region and their operations that are global, by the way, including in the United States.

You have IRGC elements.

You have Hezbollah cells.

You have in Europe, you have a lot of it, Southeast Asia.

So those are really global threats that the majority of US resources are focused on tackling.

And I always say that to people so that they understand the type of threat this regime poses.

I don't want to imply I don't think anybody should imply that we're better off with them there versus the instability that we could see with a collapse of the regime, because it's just not black or white.

It's really, you know, weighing costs and benefits.

Now, you can see the Trump administration trying to rewrite this playbook of regime change.

They are trying to do it in Venezuela.

It remains to be seen.

if the model they've used in Venezuela does work, this idea where you take out the leader somehow, in that case abducted, Maduro was abducted, you take him out, you find somebody you can work with, you keep the elements there so that it's unlike Iraq, you keep the elements there and you find ways to incentivize those elements or leaders to work with the United States to start putting in place democratic norms or practices, working toward free and fair elections or releasing political prisoners or so on.

And we don't know yet how that's going to work out in Venezuela.

But you can see that the Trump administration is viewing that as an ideal model.

It might work.