(AFP) – On a US late-night television show Saturday, the host played a clip from 2011 of a businessman warning that President Barack Obama “will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.” That businessman was Donald Trump. Fast-forward 15 years, and Trump, now in his own second term as president, ordered huge military strikes on Iran when talks with Tehran brought no breakthrough.
The commander-in-chief has repeatedly declared himself to be a “President of Peace,” boasted of his dealmaking ability in ending global conflicts, and complained of being cheated of the Nobel Peace Prize. His rise to power in 2016 on an “America First” platform was partly fueled by his rejection of bloody foreign wars waged by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back on the campaign trail in 2024, he repeatedly said he had started “no new wars.” After returning to the White House, he slammed the “so-called nation-builders” who “wrecked far more nations than they built.”
In line with his vision of himself, Trump earlier this year held the first meeting of his “Board of Peace” — a body originally created to uphold the Gaza ceasefire that has morphed into a would-be United Nations featuring several authoritarians. When the Nobel academy snubbed him, Trump even proudly accepted a peace award from football’s world governing body FIFA that appeared to have been specially created for him.
– ‘Major surprise’ –
But in the second year of his second term, Trump suddenly appears as comfortable prosecuting war as making peace. In the space of less than two months, the man who once shunned “regime change” has reveled in the military operations that toppled Venezuela’s president and killed the supreme leader of Iran. That’s not to mention threatening a military takeover of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
“All this comes as a major surprise,” said Richard Haass, a former diplomat in President George W. Bush’s administration. “This is an administration that has shown no interest in regime change or democracy promotion elsewhere,” Haass said in a newsletter. “Why here and now is a mystery as there is no clear evidence that the Iranian regime (however unpopular and weakened) is on the edge of collapse.”
The scion of a property empire, Trump himself avoided the draft for the Vietnam War. But the former military academy student has long shown a fascination for martial trappings, often surrounding himself with soldiers and visiting military sites. He frequently brags about US military might, including in last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and boasted of restoring America’s fighting force to its former glories with new battleships that critics say would be sitting ducks for missiles.
– ‘I got power’ –
The question now is what effect Trump’s wars will have on US voters, especially the Trump supporters who believed his campaign promises to end its “forever wars.” The first major test will be the American public’s willingness to tolerate military casualties, with the announcement Sunday of the first three service members to die in action against Iran. After the strikes, only one in four Americans approved of the attacks while 43 percent disapproved, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday.
Trump’s wars could figure heavily in November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans already fear they could lose control of the House of Representatives. Trump is deep under water in the polls, thanks largely to voters still feeling the pinch from the cost of living — an issue the Iran strikes could exacerbate if oil prices spike. The effect on his base will be a particular concern. Former “Make America Great Again” firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, who split from Trump last year, called the Iran attack a “lie.”
But Trump makes no bones about how he enjoys commanding the world’s most powerful military. Welcoming the Florida Panthers ice hockey team to the White House in January, Trump joked that he hated the assembled players because of their good looks and “all this power.” “But I got power too, it’s called the United States military,” he said.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
