Optics, Optics, Optics @RyanMcbeth, in his video about arming the people of Iran to combat the IRGC, makes a tangential point about Venezuela that I've hit on before. Sacking Maduro for a cooperative Rodríguez wasn't a failure, it was the plan! Some claim matters in Venezuela have not improved, but unlike the speedy Operation Absolute Resolve to extract Maduro, the plan for the future of Venezuela must be slow and thorough. With Maduro out of the picture, why didn't the US install the beloved Machado the very next day? The answer is obvious to anyone not instinctively attacking the administration: Legitimacy! As Ryan points out, any obvious US interference in Iran will forever be used as a propaganda tool to claim/overstate CIA involvement. Hell, we still haven't been able to clean up the Tudeh Party propaganda that vastly overstates the CIA's involvement in Iran in 1953, as it is still the dominant narrative, even in the mainstream. I suspect the US approach in Venezuela is intentionally minimally invasive. A light touch minimizes the chaos and increases the stability of their society. Utopia overnight, or ever, should not be a reasonable expectation. With Rodriguez in charge and cooperating with the US, we can guide the country to their next election, do what we can to ensure it is fair, and the people can choose their next leader. Legitimacy! Any disaster or mild inconvenience that may (and inevitably will) arise in the future cannot be so straightforwardly blamed on the US since the Venezuelan people chose their next leader. Without the facade of democracy, the next leader would be smeared with allegations of being an installed US puppet more than they are going to be already. Given Machado's popularity, it even makes sense for Trump to disapprove of her publicly, as it grants the optics of even further distance from US influence, should she win in the future.