Iran, Venezuela, Cuba: Is Trump Beginning a New Era of Regime Change?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: As we discussed earlier, the prospect of real regime change in Iran soon is questionable. Yet, President Trump has been touting the January capture of Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolas Maduro, as, quote, “The perfect example of an intervention gone right.” Now, he’s suggesting that Cuba may be next. Vivian Salama is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and she has been reporting on the Middle East for 15 years. She gives Walter Isaacson her analysis on Trump’s actions in Iran and in Latin America.

 

WALTER ISAACSON: Thank you, Christiane. And Vivian Salama, welcome to the show.

 

VIVIAN SALAMA: Great to be here.

 

ISAACSON: What is your understanding of why President Trump launched the attacks on Iran? What was the plan there?

 

SALAMA: I think there’s been a lot of buildup. Certainly he has believed for some time that nuclear talks were basically going nowhere. He has long condemned JCPOA, he obviously pulled out of it — the Iran nuclear deal that is. He pulled out of it in his first term in office. And he has since sort of toyed with the idea of renegotiating with Iran, trying to get them in line. Their enrichment activities have grown over the past few years since the U.S. withdrew from those, from the JCPOA. So he was really looking for a solution of some kind. Either that they would be able to force the Iranian’s hand in negotiations, particularly since last year, the Trump administration launched strikes on a number of nuclear facilities in Iran. There’s a debate even within the administration about how effective those strikes were. But they believed that at least it weakened their hand a little bit. And Israel’s also war in the region with a number of Iranian proxies — the Houthis, Hezbollah — that also played a factor into it.

 

ISAACSON: Well, what about the thing that Israel forced the hand?

 

SALAMA: Yeah. So there, then there is that. I mean, as far as the exact timing goes, Bibi Netanyahu has made no secret that this is a dream come true for him. He has believed for some time that regime change is absolutely imperative in Iran. President Trump himself has sort of wavered on that question. You know, if the clerical leadership of Iran were to sit at the table and make a deal with President Trump, I don’t think that he would have walked away from that. 

 

ISAACSON: Well, suppose that the Ayatollah’s son consolidates power. What possible end games are there?

 

SALAMA: At this point, I, you know, I think it remains to be seen exactly how this could play out, except that the Iranian leadership finds itself backed into a corner and so significantly weakened — its hand so significantly weakened that it has no choice but either to surrender and or negotiate. And that is what the administration is certainly hoping for. They wanna see that kind of a solution. Especially as President Trump dangles this possibility of ground troops being needed to be able to kind of see their objectives through. 

Now I want to emphasize what the objectives that they keep putting out are. Whether or not, you know, that is ultimately where, where it takes the conflict or not, but they say they wanna denigrate Iran’s nuclear capacity. They wanna take out its missiles. They wanna take out its Navy. And President Trump in a press conference this week saying that the Navy has pretty much been annihilated. (07:59) And then lastly target the proxies that are in the region. 

And so that is what they can continue to emphasize is their core mission at hand. They don’t like to talk about regime change, except President Trump likes to tap dance and flirt with this idea of regime change and say, Yes, at this point, I think it’s time for regime change in Iran. Obviously he kind of he tends to kind of flip flop on some of these issues, as do a number of people in his administration. And so that’s why we have to kind of wait and see how it unfolds.

 

ISAACSON: You talk about the need to degrade Iran’s proxies in the region, you just call them, and of course the main one is Lebanon and the Iranian proxies in Lebanon. And that seems to now be a second front in this war, or at least for Israel, which is attacking there. Tell me how this is gonna play out, and is the U.S. gonna open a second front, or could it, in Lebanon against Iran’s proxies?

 

SALAMA: So far, my understanding is that they are very reluctant to open a second front. They will defend Israel if need be with limited targeting, which we’ve seen you know, in recent years as well. But they’re very reluctant to open a second front at this point, particularly since the war in Iran already is so grossly unpopular here in the United States, even among many in the president’s space. They would rather kind of get in and out and do this as quickly as possible, also just because we are in a midterm election year, and a lot of that hangs in the balance. Also because energy prices are rising, and that is also really placing a lot of pressure on the Republican party. So for those reasons, I think they are definitely leaning toward an in and out scenario. 

Now, easier said than done. I’m someone who’s covered the Middle East for 15 years. I know that these conflicts can spiral out of control almost overnight. This is already looking that way. Israel has sort of made it its mission to try to complete what had started a few years ago and go after remaining cells of Hezbollah that have created any kind of trouble for Israel. Now that’s their positioning of it. But of course we see civilian sites being targeted as well, which is very troubling and could also open the door for a wider conflict. And so —

 

ISAACSON: Wait you just said something a moment ago about it could spiral out of control, and that’s what we’re seeing now. Is this really spiraling outta control, and what do you mean by that?

 

SALAMA: Well, you already see Iran launching attacks sort of haphazardly around the region — even beyond the region. I was reading that Azerbaijan got missiles. I mean, I don’t have the list in front of me right now about all the countries that have gotten hit one way or another. Some of it, of course was just, you know, misfires and things like that. But others were deliberate. And certainly Iran is already going after U.S. allies in the region — its Arab allies — targeting sites at massive numbers, I mean, in the hundreds per day sometimes in places like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and Qatar and Saudi Arabia. 

These are countries that obviously have very close ties with the United States. Some of them host military bases, U.S. military bases there, and that is partially why they’re being targeted. They’re also no friend to Iran. They were very much on board for containing Iran’s nuclear program and kind of getting it in line. But on the other hand, they did not want to get dragged into this conflict. I was talking to Arab officials and I wrote a story before this conflict began about Arab allies declining the Trump administration’s request to have them use their military bases because of that exact reason.

 

ISAACSON: So you don’t put much stock in the idea that the Saudis helped push this attack on Iran as well?

 

SALAMA: I don’t think that they’re crying for the Ayatollah. I definitely think that they like to see some limited strikes. However, all the officials I talked to believed that a broad conflict like the one we are seeing now was only going to create tension and destabilize the region. Obviously destabilize energy markets. And that’s what we’re seeing, whether it’s a short term or not. Unfortunately, I don’t have a glass ball, but we’ll find out.

 

ISAACSON: Well, you talk about destabilizing energy markets, which is a bit of a euphemism for when I go by the gas station now it’s gonna hit $4 soon. And West Texas in the media is now $90 dollars a barrel. If this conflict putters — I mean, sort of simmers for a while. Doesn’t explode, but stays on. Do you think oil stays above $90 a barrel? And does that help Russia? Does that hurt the American economy? Does it help China?

 

SALAMA: Well, a lot of it hinges on whether or not the Strait of Hormuz becomes passable. At this point. It’s not. And that’s one of the big reasons. It’s either because it’s too dangerous or because tanker companies don’t wanna take the risk. And it’s understandable with missiles flying back and forth over the Gulf. If that were to change, then I could certainly see a scenario in which the oil prices stabilize. But until it becomes passable, until gas is being pumped again in Qatar — one of the largest LNG producers — you know, those factors definitely play a huge role in this. And until that changes, I don’t envision a major change or these prices coming down.

 

ISAACSON: Both you and The Atlantic have been doing a great job covering Ukraine, and Ukraine is one of the countries that has actually come to the aid of the United States and others in terms of helping with drones defense against drones that Iran may have. Tell me, what is Ukraine doing and how that might affect the dynamic of the Ukraine war?

 

SALAMA: So, Ukraine has been very skilled at drone technology, in part because it had to be. Russia was also very skilled at the use of drones. I remember being on the front lines and hearing the hovering buzz of drones over my head from Russian drones that were flying in and over Ukraine. They had to quickly find ways to combat that. And especially because a lot of the drone technology that they did have their drones were able to be shot down by Russian technology, they didn’t have them. So they’ve been enhancing their technology over this time in a way to be able to fight in this modern way. 

And so President Zelensky in recent days took to X and offered drone technology to help support this war because Iran has been able to sow chaos across the region in part because of its drone technology. And that has been an issue so far. And so President Trump was asked about that in an interview this week, and he said he would consider it, he’d take help from anyone that he can get help from. And so it’ll be very interesting to see if that ends up in a partnership, particularly since President Zelensky has sort of struggled to endear himself to President Trump when negotiating his own conflict. That  might be a way in for him.

 

ISAACSON: You had a great piece in The Atlantic about a week ago called All Eyes on Cuba, which is a great headline and a great piece. ‘Cause It said, Okay, after Venezuela, after all this, you have a president who’s kind of liking regime change. I think President Trump said, “as we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will [soon] be coming to Cuba.” What does Trump wanna achieve there?

 

SALAMA: Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you Walter, like, there…Cuba has probably haunted seven decades worth of presidents of both parties. And so finding a solution to Cuba and — to the Cuba problem, and what I mean by that is, again, this perception that there’s a communist regime at the doorstep of the United States that would be a perch for countries like Russia — or once upon a time, the Soviet Union — and China to be able to spy on the United States, because it would be more sympathetic to their ideologies and not the U.S. That has haunted presidents of both parties. 

And President Trump is no different, except that circumstances are now different. Because for the past two or three decades, Cuba has largely been propped up by Venezuela, Venezuelan oil specifically. I wrote about the history of it, this alliance between Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, who is the predecessor to Nicolas Maduro, (25:33) the one who sort of flipped Venezuela from a democracy to a more socialist nation. You know, Cuba needed Venezuela because it had just lost the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union collapsed, and it needed a benefactor to help it. And Venezuela stepped in. Started shipping oil, then Cuba would respond with doctors and you know, others assistants including intelligence sharing. 

All of that is gone now with Nicolas Maduro being toppled. And Nicolas Maduro definitely carried on that tradition with Cuba. Removing Nicolas Maduro and forming a blockade in the Caribbean has essentially cut off those economic lifelines to Cuba. Now, Cuba’s economy was already struggling. It has been for years: mismanagement by the government, COVID, all these things complicated, their ability to kind of thrive at a basic level. But that oil, that oil line that came from Venezuela was so crucial. And it’s, it’s been cut off — virtually <crosstalk>

 

ISAACSON: And what, what does the opposition in Cuba look like?

 

SALAMA: The opposition in Cuba looks a lot like the opposition in Iran, interestingly. It is disorganized, scattered most in exile. You know experts who have followed Cuba very deeply — more than me — have told me that it’s virtually non-existent at this stage. There is no clear leader. And that’s the big difference between Venezuela and Cuba, is that there isn’t just a clear leader where they can point to and say, okay, the opposition is strong. Let’s — we have a fallback if negotiations don’t work. Now, of course, that didn’t end up, it didn’t play out that way in Venezuela. 

 

ISAACSON: Right. 

 

SALAMA: Nicolas Maduro’s regime is still in power, ironically, his vice president —

 

ISAACSON: Could that happen in Cuba?

 

SALAMA: It’s possible that it could happen in Cuba. Interestingly enough, we know that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is speaking with the grandson of Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s brother, who led the country for a while, but he’s 94 now. So he’s enjoying his retirement somewhere. He’s speaking with Raul Castro’s grandson. And they are trying to see if a negotiated settlement could work, if the Cuban government would be willing to sort of make peace with the United States. 

And I can tell you, they’re watching what’s happening in the world very closely. What happened to Nicolas Maduro, I mean, I got, I can’t tell you, it struck fear into the hearts of foes and, and allies alike, because he was virtually plucked from his bed, put on a ship, and then a helicopter and sent to a New York City courtroom. A sovereign, a president of a sovereign nation. And they did so bypassing Congress. So that was an eye-opener, and certainly for the Cuban regime, which thinks, you know, if he could do that in Venezuela, of course he could do that to us too. 

 

ISAACSON: Well, let’s put this in historical perspective. You know, a century ago, the United States used to go around doing regime changes, whether it be Latin America, Asia, and then of course, over the 20th century in Iran and many other places, those did not tend to end well. Why is this whole new spate of regime changing — do you think there’s a good chance that it could end as badly as the previous spate?

 

SALAMA: Walter, just last week, I wrote about the 1953 attempted CIA coup, or the CIA coup. It was not attempted. It was actually a successful CIA coup in Iran by Dwight Eisenhower. And what was a successful coup at the time ended up having repercussions years later, decades later, I should say, with the Iranian revolution, which was rooted in part by who the U.S. put in power after that coup. 

And so, in this case, hindsight is not 2020. I have been on television talking about this, and I’ve been talking to experts about this, that, you know, unfortunately, history has shown that regime change operations don’t always go very well, and especially if a foreign power is dictating who should run that country, and the people have limited say in that. And so President Trump has been very careful in terms of kind of emphasizing that the people should be the ones to choose. (32:13) But of course the people in this case did not choose Delcy Rodriguez Nicolas Maduro’s, vice president, and she for now is the caretaker leader, government leader of Venezuela. Because she’s the one who’s working with the U.S. Whether or not they hand power to the opposition groups who did legitimately win elections in Venezuela, that we’re not sure if that’s gonna happen. We keep asking the administration that we don’t get a clear answer. I think they seem to think that stability needs to come first in the country before you can have a referendum or an election, where then you kind of do it all over again. But it’s very unclear how this is going to play out at this stage. Obviously, it’s only been a couple of months in Venezuela. We’re watching things unfold in real time in Iran. So it’s hard to really predict how it would go. But given what you were just saying, history has not kind of been too kind to operations of this nature. And so we have to hold our breath and hope that this is different, but it’s hard to imagine.

 

ISAACSON: Vivian Salama, thank you so much for joining us.

SALAMA: Thank you.