To win the White House in 2016, Donald Trump first had to get former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the son and brother of two former presidents inextricably linked to US wars in the Middle East.
Attacking the Bush family dynasty — and its legacy — became a feature of Trump’s campaign. And it meant doubling down on criticism of the Iraq War, which led President George W. Bush to the premise that the United States was finding weapons of mass destruction.
“The war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake,” Trump responded, when asked in a February 2016 Republican presidential debate whether he still believed Bush should have been impeached, as he had said in 2008.
“We can make mistakes,” Trump added. “But that’s beautiful. We should never be in Iraq.”
The moment was one in Trump’s long history of condemning perpetual wars and, as president, promised to distance the US from foreign entanglements that could lead to them. But a year into his second term, Trump has ordered military action in multiple countries, including a January strike on Venezuela to oust Nicolas Maduro. And now with the war in Iran, Trump has plunged America into its most significant conflict since the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — without any congressional approval.
“President Trump’s bold decision to launch Operation Epic Fury is based on a truth that presidents have been talking about for nearly 50 years, but no other president has had the courage to face: Iran poses a direct and imminent threat to the United States of America and our military in the Middle East,” White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt said in an emailed statement. “The rogue Iranian regime in the evil hands of the Ayatollah has killed and maimed thousands of American citizens and soldiers over the years — and that will end with President Trump.”
Trump’s successful 2024 campaign to return to office is predicated in large part on how he didn’t start any wars during his first term.
“My entire adult life has been shaped by a president who threw America into senseless wars and failed to win them,” Trump’s future vice president JD Vance wrote in a January 2023 guest column for the Wall Street Journal endorsing Trump’s 2024 bid.
“In Mr. Trump’s four years in office, he has not started any wars despite overwhelming pressure from members of his own party and his own administration,” added Vance, an Iraq war veteran. “Not starting wars is probably a low bar, but it’s a reflection of the hawkishness of Mr. Trump’s predecessors and the foreign-policy establishment he slavishly followed.”
At a briefing on Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected suggestions that Iran could become Trump’s Iraq, vowing it would not devolve into an “endless” war. But Trump has hinted that the US may be involved longer than he bargained for.
“From the beginning, we planned for four to five weeks,” Trump said at the Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. “But we have the ability to go much further than that. … Somebody said today, they said, ‘Oh, the president wants to do it really quickly, then he’s going to get bored.’ I don’t get bored. There is nothing boring about it.”
Trump listed four objectives for Operation Epic Fury: to degrade Iran’s missile capabilities, destroy Iran’s navy, ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, and ensure its proxy forces cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders.
The outbreak of war with Iran comes just weeks after a military operation in Venezuela that ousted Maduro. And Trump said Sunday that he was separately contemplating a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, suggesting the U.S. could become increasingly involved in three foreign entanglements at once.
Although Trump has pledged for years to keep the US out of new wars, he has taken a hard line with Iran, rejecting the nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama, killing Iranian military official Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike or bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities last year.
During his 2016, 2020 and 2024 runs for the White House, Trump said Iran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Since taking office, Trump has said “no fewer than 33 times that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,” a White House official said. Trump told NBC News on Sunday that those concerns are the basis for launching “major military operations” against the country.
Trump’s skepticism about foreign intervention — and specifically about wars in the Middle East — dates back to his time in elected politics. In addition to describing Bush’s invasion of Iraq as an impeachable crime, Trump has repeatedly suggested that Obama would use the military invasion for political gain.
“To get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran,” Trump posted on social media in November 2011.
In October 2012, weeks before Obama was to be re-elected, he made a similar prediction: “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in a tailspin — see him launch a strike on Libya or Iran. He’s desperate.”
Trump’s 2016 campaign for president brought together a new “America First” Republican coalition that rejected a neoconservative, interventionist foreign policy.
“As a candidate for president, I pledged a new approach,” Trump will say in his 2019 State of the Union address. “Great nations do not wage endless wars.”
Jeb Bush, the president’s brother who launched the Iraq War, made a convenient foil as Trump roamed through the primaries during that campaign. Even so, as is often the case with Trump, he had to explain his own shift in thinking on Iraq. When asked by Howard Stern in a 2002 interview whether he supported the invasion of Iraq, Trump responded in the affirmative. After audio of the interview surfaced in 2016, Trump said he had changed his mind by the time the war began.
“I think people knew there were no weapons of mass destruction,” Trump said in a February 2016 appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “I think they wanted to go there, they thought it was easy, they didn’t prosecute the war very well.”
Trump’s first term in office was not without occasional military strikes. But as Vance, a Trump critic turned ally, noted years later, there are no new wars on his watch. It was a point of pride that Trump and his supporters often emphasized.
“Does the USA want to be the policeman of the Middle East, getting nothing but precious lives and spending trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, don’t appreciate what we’re doing? Do we want to be forever?” In December 2018, Trump wrote on social media after announcing the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and declaring victory over ISIS in the conflict that began under Obama.
Trump added that it was time for others to finally fight back.
A few days later, during a surprise visit to US troops in Iraq, Trump further explained his thinking.
“Even if the American terrorist army can be defeated on the battlefield, every nation in the world must decide for itself what kind of future it wants to build for its people and what kind of sacrifices they are willing to make for their children,” he said. “America must not fight for every nation on earth (but) cannot be repaid, in many cases, at all.”
The following year, as he prepared to accelerate withdrawal from Syria amid Turkey’s escalating military operations, Trump reiterated his philosophy.
“Turkey has been planning to attack the Kurds for a long time. They have been fighting forever,” he posted on social media. “We have no soldiers or military anywhere near the occupied territory. I am trying to end the endless wars.”
And in November 2020, after Trump lost his re-election bid to Joe Biden, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller gave an update on plans to draw down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“With the blessings of Providence in the coming year, we will end this generation’s war and bring our men and women home,” Miller said. “We protect our children from the heavy burden and toll of perpetual war.”
Now, however, Trump is openly admitting that ground troops in Iran may be necessary.
“I don’t have the yips about boots on the ground — as every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I wouldn’t say that,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post on Monday.
So far, six US service members have been killed during operations in Iran.
That’s a far cry from the anti-war posturing of the 2024 campaign that brought Trump back to power.
That race began with Vance, then a senator, framing his supportive Wall Street Journal column around the idea that Trump would not “recklessly” send Americans to fight in foreign wars. It ended with messaging specifically targeting the young male voters who helped carry Trump and Vance to victory.
In late October 2024, Trump’s team amplified a comment by journalist Peter Hamby, who shared on CNN that young people he speaks to on college campuses are “worried about global conflict because they’re draft age.”
And in a series of social media posts before Election Day, longtime Trump adviser Stephen Miller repeatedly warned the Democratic nominee, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, that a win would lead to young people “fighting” in “World War 3.”
“If you vote for Kamala, Liz Cheney will be secretary of defense,” Miller wrote, referring to the anti-Trump Republican and former House member from Wyoming known for his eccentric foreign policy views. “We invade a dozen countries. Boys in Michigan are drafted to fight boys in the Middle East. Millions die.”
