Nonetheless, I worried our own government was not displaying a proper sense of urgency. There was, across the government, an obstructionist, “not invented here” mentality, undoubtedly in large part because under eight years of Obama, the Venezuelan, Cuban, and Nicaraguan regimes were not seen as US adversaries. Little or no attention was given to what the US should do if, inconveniently, the people of these countries decided they wanted to run their own governments. Even more important, in my view, the growing Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and Cuban influence across the hemisphere had not been a
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