Pentagon preps Cuba operation, same 90-to-120-day memo that once ended in a 35 percent oil stake.

As it ran on the front

Let's start with what the memo actually says, because the memo is careful. CBS News reviewed an internal Army message this week stating that some units would "possibly [be] needed in 90-120 days" for potential action around Cuba. Possibly needed. Ninety to a hundred and twenty days. Around Cuba. That is not an invasion. That is logistics. That is a building doing what buildings do, which is plan for things that might not happen, on a timeline that might not matter, involving units that might not go.

Now here is the part I have to walk through, because I said "might not" three times and I want to be honest about why that phrase is doing so much work. Nine months ago the U.S. military removed Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores from Caracas. Also logistics, also planning, also a timeline nobody outside the building was shown in advance. What came out the other end of that timeline was majority U.S. control of Venezuela's 65 billion barrels, with 35 percent of the stake sitting with the Pentagon — the position Energy Secretary Chris Wright later credited to a 30-minute military operation. Gas still hit $4.15 a gallon over Labor Day. Flores is still in a Brooklyn jail asking a judge to let her out for her heart. The talks over that oil stake didn't come with a 90-to-120-day memo either, as far as the public record shows — they came with Rubio, Miller, and Delcy Rodríguez in a room, and then they came with a stake. The paperwork was different. The building was the same. The result rhymes.…