He said no foreign wars. So what made Trump act? - The Times

Less than two weeks after the first meeting of his Board of Peace, President Trump grew bored of peace.

In a presidency founded on the principles of America First, why take such a big risk, involving the predictable loss of US troops and flag-covered coffins returning home, to try and overturn a far away regime?

The move seems to go against one of the core ways Trump earned the trust of millions of disaffected American voters who wanted an end to expensive “forever wars”. But there is no need to look too deeply for complex explanations.

Trump’s actions are driven by the same elemental forces that have always shaped his decisions: opportunity, self-belief, revenge and glory.

Despite all Trump’s talk of drawing a line between himself and the neocon era of regime change, the chance to take out the Ayatollah was too tempting to resist, especially under constant pressure from Binyamin Netanyahu.

The opportunity came Trump’s way when he was struggling domestically. His handling of the Epstein files has been a mess, and voters are not feeling the roaring economy that Trump keeps describing.

Here was another chance for a rally-around-the-flag moment, and Trump had been emboldened by the expertly-delivered military raid to capture the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, which also brought domestic economic benefits.

Trump knew that parts of his base would revolt, because they told him they would. He has had Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon to the White House and they have made no secret of their opposition to foreign wars. Outrage is also being led by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman who was once a devoted Trump supporter but has turned into his most outspoken conservative critic.

This is where Trump’s self-belief comes into play. He believes — and with good reason — that he has the power of persuasion to convince his base to go along with him. After all, millions of Americans genuinely believe his repeated false assertion that the 2020 election was rigged in favour of Joe Biden, a claim for which there is no evidence (but a blizzard of conspiracy theories). He has taken the precaution of making “Traitor” Greene a pariah.

The Iran attack will be supported by a blizzard of justifications that Trump will hammer home time and again until the faithful repeat them.

This was evident from the short video the president posted to his Truth Social account shortly after the strikes began on Saturday, which set out at least four reasons for them: the Iranian regime’s historic attacks on US interests; its “imminent threats” to “the American people”; the future threat of a “nuclear-armed Iran” to “our children”; and “giving [the Iranian people] what you want … the time to seize control of your destiny” — aka, regime change.

Trump is continually asking his base to trust him. These have become essential loyalty tests. This is the moment that Maga abandons any pretence at standing for immutable principles and becomes fully whatever Trump says it is.

In his speech, Trump also hinted at a fundamental motivation for the attack — revenge. He referred to the October 7 assault on Israel by Hamas, Iran’s proxy. He emphasised that this had included killing 46 Americans and taking 12 hostage. “It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before,” he said.

Sound familiar? On September 16 2001, George W Bush said about the 9/11 attacks: “We’ve never seen this kind of evil before.”

Contrary to the popular initialism Taco (Trump always chickens out), Trump bears long grudges and never abandons the thought of revenge. His busy day posting on Truth Social yesterday was instructive: one of his reposts was of a phone-in with the late radio host Rush Limbaugh from 2020, when Trump said: “Iran [has] been put on notice: if you f*** around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before.”

Revenge is one of Trump’s core impulses. It is fuelled by genuine hatred, in this case of a hateful regime. At Charlie Kirk’s memorial, after stirring words of forgiveness from Kirk’s widow, Erika, Trump said: “I hate my opponent.”

Trump also hates losing and loves the (often self-acclaimed) glory of winning. He regards President Obama as a loser because he made “the worst deal in history” with Iran. Trump tore it up.

Yet Trump learnt from the talks conducted by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and property friend Steve Witkoff that if a deal were to be made, it would have to be an Obama-style agreement to limit uranium enrichment. Continuing down the diplomacy route would also have left the regime in power, as Obama did.

Another repost yesterday showed that Trump believes his path is the route to glory. He highlighted a New York Post headline: “Trump’s bold move to rid the world of Iran’s evil regime once and for all.”

This all added up to a decision to go to war fuelled by opportunity, self-belief, revenge and the pursuit of glory.

Another core Trump characteristic hangs over the greatest risk of his presidency — his propensity to blame others for his own failures. If too many Americans die it will be the fault of his generals. If regime change fails it will be the fault of the Iranian people for not taking the chance he gave them. But if it succeeds, the glory will be Trump’s.