During his run to retake the White House in 2024, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to avoid "endless war" and serve as a "peace president."
"We will measure our success not only by the battles we win," Trump said during his second inaugural address in January, "but also by the wars that we end and, perhaps most importantly, the wars that we never get into."But after he launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites and called for "regime change" this weekend, critics accused him of blatantly misleading the American public.
"Trump, who proclaimed upon his inauguration he wanted to be remembered as a 'peacemaker,' couldn't even wait a half a year into his term to do the thing that he had told everyone he wouldn’t do, and which he built his entire political brand on opposing," wrote columnist Branko Marcetic in Jacobin.
On the campaign trail, Trump lambasted his predecessor, Joe Biden, as a "warmonger," promising to end the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. However, both conflicts not only continue to rage, but have grown bloodier.
Massacres by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in U.S.-administered aid sites have ramped up in recent months as Israel advances with what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described in February as "U.S. President Trump's plan for the creation of a different Gaza.”
As Trump has abandoned talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine have likewise surged in recent weeks. Shortly after Trump's airstrikes on Iran, the Kremlin launched over 300 drones and dozens of missiles at Kyiv, leaving seven people dead and 31 injured, according to The Washington Post.
"Trump said he could end Russia’s war against Ukraine before his inauguration. He said he would negotiate an end to the war in Gaza with a phone call," wrote civil and labor rights leader Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II on X. "He said Biden was going to drag the US into World War III, but he would be a peace president. It was all lies."
Since he entered the political arena Trump has railed against the wars launched by former President George W. Bush. On the Republican primary debate stage in 2015, he described the Iraq War as a "big, fat mistake," building his credibility with Americans seeking a break from the GOP's interventionist foreign policy consensus.
After Trump's airstrikes on Saturday, his associates attempted to downplay the obvious comparisons with Bush's disastrous legacy.
Vice President JD Vance—who on the campaign trail called out Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' coziness with Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and his ex-congresswoman daughter, Liz Cheney—went on NBC to do damage control and explain how Trump's actions were somehow different from those of the 43rd president.
"I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern," he said. "But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both assured the public that this would not be another war of "regime change," like Bush waged in Iraq.
But Trump thoroughly undermined their claims on Sunday night, when he posted on Truth Social: "It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!"
In a Sunday column for The Guardian, Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and an associate professor of journalism at New York University, argued that Trump is following Bush's model.
"Donald Trump has dragged the U.S. into another war based on exaggerations and manipulated intelligence," Bazzi wrote. "The people of the Middle East will pay the highest price for yet another reckless war built on a lie."