Proving that he doesn’t fit in typical Democrat or Republican stereotypes, President 73-year-old President Donald Trump bucked calls from his key foreign policy advisers to strike Iran following the downing June 20 of a RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone. Urged to retaliate on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps [IRGC] missile sites on the Persian Gulf, Trump stopped the expected Cruise missile strike only minutes before scheduled launch. Trump’s been roundly criticized for his indecision when, in fact, he carefully deliberated and determined that the costs-outweigh-the-benefits. With few exceptions, Trump’s been a critic of post WW II military adventures, largely ending in failure, with exception of the late President George H.W. Bush’s 1991 Gulf War, ejecting Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Other than that, Trump opposed the Vietnam War and certainly the 2003 Iraq War.
While it’s true that Trump may have told shock-jock Howard Stern in 2002 that he wasn’t that concerned about the Iraq War, he soon came to see its colossal waste of U.S. military resources. Trump staked his 2016 campaign early on in South Carolina, telling former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that the “Iraq war was a beaut,” telling a Bush-friendly audience, with former President George W. Bush there, that the Iraq war was the biggest military blunder in U.S. history. If that’s not opposing the Iraq War, then what is? Yet if you listen to Trump’s critics, they brand him a warmonger. Take his stance on Iran, for instance, Democrats blame Trump for Iran’s recent hostilities toward the U.S. When he backed the U.S. out of former President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] AKA the Iranian Nuke Deal, Trump’s critics say Iran’s hostilities toward the U.S. increased.
Trump exited the Iranian Nuke Deal because Iran refused to stop its proxy war against Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally. Whatever happened with Saudi expat, critic Jamal Khashoggi, including the Kingdom’s direct involvement in his murder, that’s no reason to abandon decades of U.S. foreign policy. Yet if you listen to the U.S. press, Khashoggi’s death should be grounds for canceling old alliances. Trump’s been more practical and balanced, trying to advance U.S. interests, while, at the same time, telling Riyadh extrajudicial assassinations are unacceptable. When it comes to Iran, Trump’s critics can’t see that holding back on a military strike actually gives Trump more leverage with Iran going forward. Trump’s decision-making shows he’s capable of fully digesting the pros-and-cons before taking precipitous action. Trump’s decision to hold off on retaliation was purely strategic.
When it comes to the 18-year-old Afghanistan War or U.S. involvement in Syria, Trump wants to see the U.S. military get on with it. He doesn’t like the Pentagon’s wasteful expenditures, especially if the war’s going nowhere. While former President George W. Bush had every right to go after Osama bin Laden after Sept. 11, letting the Afghan War drag on for 18 years bothers Trump. Discussing an end to the conflict with the Taliban hasn’t proved fruitful. When Trump wanted to pull the 2,000 U.S. advisers out of Syria, he saw nothing but a quagmire. Yet his critics, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, threw a fit. Obama spent billions feeding the Saudi proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for seven years, only adding to death. destruction and terrorism. Trump wants no part of Obama’s policy seeking to topple al-Assad.
Trump has his falling out with former Defense Secretary James Mattis over what to do in Iraq and Syria. Mattis was content with the status quo in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Trump wanted the Pentagon to act more decisively or get out. Trump’s only interest in Syria was working with the Kurd’s YPG militia to destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS]. Trump succeeded in ending ISIS strongholds and safe havens in Syria, morphing the once lethal terror group into a Bedouin-type insurgency, losing all its captured territory. Trump’s critics see today’s crisis with Iran all his fault. If only Trump had stayed in the Iranian Nuke Deal, supplying missiles-and-arms to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to fight Saudi Arabia, not to mention to the same thing with Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists in the Gaza Strip and Beirut, Lebanon. Trump’s critics pretend Iran is not a rogue state.
Unlike Trump’s generals or civilian military advisers, he showed appropriate deliberation when it came to their impulse to attack Iran. Whether that happens sometime soon is anyone’s guess. What’s known for sure now is that Trump refused to pull-the-trigger, knowing the collateral damage. Judging by his reluctance for wasteful conflict, Trump’s the anti-war candidate, someone less likely to get the U.S. into another costy entanglement. “At time went on, our foreign policy began to make less sense,” Trump said. “Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, which led to one foreign policy disaster after another,” prompting his critics to call him isolationist and indecisive. When you consider the consequences of attacking Iran, Trump, not his military or civilian advisers, including former Defense Secretary Mattis, made the right decision.
