President Donald Trump said Friday that he deliberately avoided dismantling Venezuela’s post-Maduro governing structure in order to prevent chaos similar to what followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Speaking to reporters as he departed the White House on Jan. 16, Trump explained that his administration chose to work with Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez rather than immediately install opposition figure María Corina Machado, citing the dangers of creating a sudden power vacuum.
Trump pointed to Iraq as a cautionary tale.
“If you ever remember a place called Iraq, where everybody was fired—the police, the generals, everybody—they ended up being ISIS,” Trump said. “Instead of just getting down to business, they ended up being ISIS.”