I don't agree with that. There's a substantial difference between "What motivated this?" and "I wouldn't be surprised if this was motivated by {political reaso

I don't agree with that. There's a substantial difference between "What motivated this?" and "I wouldn't be surprised if this was motivated by {political reason x}.". You're getting hung up on grammatic structure. "Could it have been motivated by {political reason x}?" has the same problem, even though it's phrased as a question. It's the baseless speculation.