A consistent foreign policy

President Trump has demanded that the Iran regime completely surrender to Israel and has rejected the claim that his goal is a mere ceasefire. The Trump administration also reiterated Trump’s repeated and unequivocal imperative that Iran dismantle its illicit nuclear weapons program, lest it be dismantled by overwhelming force. Additionally, the administration emphasized the U.S. position that Tehran may not conduct domestic uranium enrichment, which would only be necessary for a weapons program as opposed to a civil nuclear energy program.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to support a multinational effort to intercept Iranian missiles headed for Israeli cities, and it moved additional and significant military forces closer to the Middle East, including dozens of refueling tankers to bases in Europe and an aircraft carrier. The evidence certainly points to the plausibility that Trump may order U.S. military strikes against hard-to-reach targets to assist in Israel’s campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

A popular cadre of MAGA podcasters including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Dave Smith are upset. They say Trump’s current levels of support for Israel’s war against Iran are bad enough and the result of influence by “warmongers,” and they insist that to participate in another Middle East war that could result in “World War III” would be a total betrayal of Trump’s campaign promise to be a peace president that ended wars and didn’t start new ones. Trump dismissed Carlson’s criticism.

Since the president’s second term began, some in the MAGA coalition have claimed that the foreign policy of Trump’s first term did not truly reflect Trump’s real anti-war views and that the second term certainly does and would continue to. It was always a strange claim since Trump himself often understandably takes credit for the events of his first term, especially relative to the administrations directly preceding and following his. It warrants review of the military decisions he made during his first term—decisions that seem to have produced a measure of calm and increased security.

He famously directed the elimination of Iranian IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in retaliation for Iran’s killing of an American contractor; he directed, alongside allies the United Kingdom and France, an offensive missile campaign with the famous Tomahawk missiles inside Syria in response to Bashir al-Assad’s use of horrific chemical weapons against his own people; he directed the elimination of hundreds of Russian mercenaries in Syria who were threatening coalition forces; he threatened North Korean leader Kim Jung Un with military force if he did not stop his dangerous missile and nuclear testing; he dropped the massive conventional Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) on terrorist tunnels in Afghanistan on the border of terror sanctuary Pakistan; he sped up the tempo of the military campaign against the Islamic State to destroy it quicker and more thoroughly; and he collaborated with Gulf partners to fight the Iranian proxy pirates, the Houthis, to keep sea lanes open.

Trump’s first term was not characterized by pacifism, to put it mildly. Neither was it characterized by long drawn-out military campaigns with dubious goals such as democracy promotion among peoples with little desire to be democrats. The military strikes and campaigns were scoped, limited, and clearly defined missions meant to secure an outcome to maximize security for the American people, U.S. allies and partners, and deployed forces. Would Trump prefer to negotiate and achieve diplomatic successes than employ military force? He certainly seems to. He has consistently demonstrated a willingness to talk to any world leader including the worst dictators like Russia’s Vladmir Putin, North Korea’s Kim, terror leaders of Hamas, and China’s Xi. But diplomacy is backed by the credible threat of imposing a cost on the adversary in the event it does not cooperate.

The reality is, diplomacy and the credible threat of military force or some other imposition of cost, go hand in glove. And it is reasonable to infer that when the American people elected Trump for a second term, most of them believed they would have the same successes in foreign policy as the first term, including keeping the world’s most dangerous sponsor of terrorism—Iran—from acquiring a nuclear weapon. This explains polling that shows the majority of Americans agree with Trump on his Iran policy.

It is admirable for American leaders to take the use of military force extremely seriously and to lament when they conclude it is necessary. But it is not admirable for leaders to hold that peace must come at any cost, certainly not at the cost of harm to the American people and their way of life. Perhaps those podcaster influencers and their followers trying to fashion Trump into a “peacemaker” president who gives in to Russia, China, Iran, and its proxies, should learn from the actual policies and strategies that maintained relative stability during Trump’s first term—make adversaries fear and respect the United States, and make allies glad we are on their side.