Trump vows peace but faces hard realities as war rages

by Shaun Tandon and Leon Bruneau

Donald Trump began his second term vowing to be a peacemaker.

Two months in, Israel has launched a major new offensive in Gaza, US forces are pounding Yemen, and Ukraine and Russia are exchanging fire despite his mediation.

Speaking as he was sworn in on January 20, Trump said: "My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier."

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He pointed to a just-concluded deal, conceived by outgoing president Joe Biden but pushed through by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, that halted Israel's military operations in Gaza in return for the release of some hostages by Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

In recent days, Israel has relaunched air strikes, killing hundreds of people according to the Gaza health ministry, and renewed its ground operations.

The State Department said Hamas bore "total responsibility" after rejecting a proposal by Witkoff, a Trump friend also mediating with Russia, to move toward a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

Trump has also ordered military strikes on Yemen's Huthi insurgents after the Iranian-backed forces reopened attacks on Red Sea shipping in professed solidarity with the Palestinians.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department official now at the International Crisis Group, which promotes conflict resolution, said that the narrative of Trump as peacemaker was always overstated and that his approach was erratic.

Trump likes to claim wins and would relish earning the Nobel Peace Prize, seeing it as a "one of life's great achievements," Finucane said.

"He was happy to claim credit for the Gaza ceasefire in January, but then unwilling to put pressure on the Israelis to move to phase two," Finucane said.

Another Trump envoy held the first-ever direct US talks with Hamas, unthinkable for previous administrations, but Trump also has called for the mass removal of Gaza's two million people.

"None of this is terribly coherent, but neither is it terribly surprising," Finucane said.

He pointed to Trump's first term in which he threatened to annihilate North Korea before holding unprecedented summits with leader Kim Jong Un and saying that they "fell in love."

- Preference for peace, but if not -

Trump's aides have described his bellicose posture as part of a strategy as he seeks an ultimate goal of peace.

"He's been abundantly clear. He's a president that wants to promote peace," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a radio interview Wednesday.

Trump, who had boasted that he would end the Ukraine war within a day, held successive calls this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and voiced optimism about reaching a truce.

But Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, launched a barrage of missile and drone attacks hours after the Trump call.

Jennifer Kavanaugh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, which supports restraint, said there was reason for optimism from Trump's Ukraine diplomacy, but that Putin has the upper hand on the ground and is not going to compromise easily.

She said that Trump also did not appear to offer any concessions to Putin, despite outside criticism of his ties with the Russian leader and Trump's earlier berating of Zelensky that alarmed European allies.

"To me, this was a positive step forward that set the ground for some confidence building, both between Ukraine and Russia and between Trump and European allies who are very concerned about his negotiating style," she said.

- 'Hard realities' -

She said it was not yet "time to give up hope for peace" from Trump.

"I think what we've seen is that promises run into the hard realities of how difficult it is to get to peace in these very difficult and intractable conflicts," she said.

Sina Toossi, a fellow at the progressive Center for International Policy, was less hopeful.

Compared with his first term, Trump's aides such as Rubio are "more loyalists than independent power players," giving the president freer rein including for brinksmanship, Toossi said.

"For Trump, foreign policy isn't about carefully negotiated peace deals. It's about performance, leverage and crafting a narrative that sells," he said.

Referring to Trump's book as a hotel developer, Toossi said: "He approaches diplomacy the way he approached real estate in 'The Art of the Deal:' -- escalate tensions, maximize threats, push the situation to the brink of disaster and then, at the last minute, strike a deal."