In his own words: Trump's Iran strike tests his rhetoric on ending wars
During his campaigns for president, Donald Trump spoke of the need to stop engaging in 'endless' or 'forever wars,' and said removing 'warmongers and America-last globalists' was among his second-term foreign policy priorities.
Trump's move to strike Iranian nuclear sites risks embroiling the United States in the sort of conflict he once derided. Like other recent American presidents, Trump said he would not permit Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. In recent months, he had held out hope that diplomacy could avoid the strike he announced Saturday.
Trump's consideration of military action had opened a schism among his 'Make American Great Again' movement and drew criticism from some of its most high-profile members.
Here's a look at some of Trump's rhetoric before his announcement Saturday about the strikes:
2024 campaign
Trump often drew lines of contrasts with his Republican primary opponents. In January 2024, at a New Hampshire rally, he referred to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was U.N. ambassador during Trump's first term, as a 'warmonger' whose mentality on foreign policy is, 'Let's kill people all over the place and let's make a lot of money for those people that make the messes.'
During a Jan. 6, 2024, rally before the Iowa caucuses, Trump told supporters that returning him to the White House would allow the country to 'turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars. They never ended.'
Rolling out his foreign policy priorities during that campaign — something Trump's orbit called ' Agenda 47 ' — he posted a video online in which he talked of how he was 'the only president in generations who didn't start a war.'
In that video, Trump called himself 'the only president who rejected the catastrophic advice of many of Washington's Generals, bureaucrats, and the so-called diplomats who only know how to get us into conflict, but they don't know how to get us out.'
First term
In his first term, Trump often referenced his anti-interventionist pledge. During his 2019 State of the Union address, he said, 'As a candidate for president, I loudly pledged a new approach. Great nations do not fight endless wars.'
There were frequent clashes with some of his advisers over whether or not the United States should take a more involved stance abroad. That included his hawkish national security adviser John Bolton, with whom Trump had strong disagreements on Iran, Afghanistan and other global challenges.
As Turkey launched a military operation into Syria targeting Kurdish forces, Trump in October 2019 posted a series of tweets citing his anti-interventionist stance.
'Turkey has been planning to attack the Kurds for a long time. They have been fighting forever,' Trump posted Oct. 10, 2019, on the platform then known as Twitter. 'We have no soldiers or Military anywhere near the attack area. I am trying to end the ENDLESS WARS.'
A week later, he reiterated his position: 'I was elected on getting out of these ridiculous endless wars, where our great Military functions as a policing operation to the benefit of people who don't even like the USA.'
2016 campaign
Candidate Trump was vociferous in his disdain for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling them both mistakes.
'We made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place,' Trump told CNN in October 2015, referencing Afghanistan.
'We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don't even have the oil,' he said of the Iraq War during a March 2016 town hall hosted by the same network.
During a primary debate, Trump engaged in a terse exchange with Jeb Bush particularly over U.S. military action in Iraq, launched by President George W. Bush, the Florida governor's brother.
'We should have never been in Iraq,' Trump said in February 2016. 'They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew that there were none.'
What about earlier?
Trump's press secretary said Wednesday that the president's beliefs that Iran should not achieve nuclear armament predated his time in politics. And his earlier writings indicate that, while candidate Trump has said he opposed the Iraq War, those sentiments were different before the conflict began.
In his 2000 book 'The America We Deserve,' the businessman wrote that he felt a military strike on Iraq might be needed, given the unknown status of that nation's nuclear capabilities.
'I'm no warmonger,' Trump wrote. 'But the fact is, if we decide a strike against Iraq is necessary, it is madness not to carry the mission to its conclusion. When we don't, we have the worst of all worlds: Iraq remains a threat, and now has more incentive than ever to attack us.' ___
Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
US strikes 3 Iranian nuclear sites, inserting itself into Israel's war with Iran
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Trump acted without congressional authorization, and he warned that there would be additional strikes if Tehran retaliated against U.S. forces. 'There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran,' he said. Iran's top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, warned in a post on X that the U.S. attacks 'will have everlasting consequences' and that Tehran 'reserves all options' to retaliate. Hours later, Iranian missiles struck areas in northern and central Israel, according to an Israeli rescue service. United Hatzalah said it was dispatching first responders, but here was no immediate word on casualties or damage. The US helped Israel strike Iran's toughest nuclear site Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Trump and Israeli leaders have claimed that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon, making it an imminent threat. The decision to directly involve the U.S. in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel that significantly degraded Iran's air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, and damaged its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said American B-2 stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kilogram) bunker-buster bomb that only they have been configured to carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground. Trump appears to have made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel's operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran's nuclear program, perhaps permanently. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump said in a post on social media, using common alternate spellings for two of the sites. 'All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.' Trump added in a later post: 'This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!' Israel announced Sunday that it had closed its airspace to both inbound and outbound flights in the wake of the U.S. attacks. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately elaborate on the operation. U.S. military leaders are scheduled to provide a briefing at 8 a.m. Eastern. The attack used bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant that is built deep into a mountain, a U.S. official said. The weapons are designed to penetrate the ground before exploding. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. In addition, U.S. submarines launched about 30 Tomahawk missiles, according to another U.S. official who also spoke on condition of anonymity. The International Atomic Energy Agency wrote on X that there has been 'no increase in off-site radiation levels' after the strikes. 'The IAEA can confirm that no increase in off-site radiation levels has been reported as of this time,' it said. The 'IAEA will provide further assessments on situation in Iran as more information becomes available.' Trump's turn to strikes departs from some previous statements The strikes are a perilous decision for Trump, who won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism. But Trump also vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country's leaders to give up its nuclear program peacefully. For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time. After Israel began striking Iran, Trump went from publicly expressing hope that the moment could be a 'second chance' for Iran to make a deal to delivering explicit threats on Khamenei and making calls for Tehran's unconditional surrender. He has bristled at criticism from some of his MAGA faithful who have suggested that further U.S. involvement would be a betrayal to supporters who were drawn to his promise to end U.S. involvement in expensive and endless wars. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump's decision to attack in a video message directed at the American president. 'Your bold decision to target Iran's nuclear facilities, with the awesome and righteous might of the United States, will change history,' he said. Netanyahu said the U.S. 'has done what no other country on earth could do.' The military showdown with Iran comes seven years after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-administration brokered agreement in 2018, calling it the 'worst deal ever.' Fears of a broader war U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was 'gravely alarmed' by the 'dangerous escalation' of American strikes. 'There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control — with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region and the world,' he said in a statement. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joined Israel's military campaign. The Houthis paused such attacks in May under a deal with the U.S. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States on Wednesday that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will 'result in irreparable damage for them.' And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared 'any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.' The Israeli military said Saturday it was preparing for the possibility of a lengthy war, while Iran's foreign minister warned before the U.S. attack that American military involvement 'would be very, very dangerous for everyone.' Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 865 people and wounded 3,396 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists. The group said of those dead, it identified 363 civilians and 215 security force personnel. Trump's decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program. ___ Madhani reported from Morristown, N.J. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Mehdi Fattahi in Iran, Lolita Baldor in Narragansett, Rhode Island, Samy Magdy in Cairo, contributed to this story.
Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
UN watchdog says no increase in radiation off sites that the US hit
President Donald Trump arrives with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to speak from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Saturday, June 21, 2025, after the U.S. military struck three Iranian nuclear and military sites, directly joining Israel's effort to decapitate the country's nuclear program. Carlos Barria/Pool via AP flag wire: true flag sponsored: false article_type: : sWebsitePrimaryPublication : publications/toronto_star bHasMigratedAvatar : false :
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Nations react to US strikes on Iran with calls for diplomacy
The U.S. strike on Iran fueled fears that Israel's war with Tehran could escalate to a wider regional conflict, and other countries began reacting Sunday with calls for diplomacy and words of caution. President Donald Trump had said Thursday that he would decide within two weeks whether to get involved. In the end, it took just days to decide, and Washington inserted itself into Israel's campaign with its early Sunday attack. It remained unclear early how much damage had been inflicted, but Iran had pledged to retaliate if the U.S. joined the Israeli assault. Some have questioned whether a weakened Iran would capitulate or remain defiant and begin striking with allies at U.S. targets scattered across the Gulf region. Here is a look at reaction from governments and officials around the world. United Nations U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was 'gravely alarmed' by the use of force by the United States. 'There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control – with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world,' he said in a statement on the social media platform X. 'I call on Member States to de-escalate.' 'There is no military solution. The only path forward is diplomacy.' New Zealand New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters urged 'all parties to return to talks.' He wouldn't tell reporters Sunday whether New Zealand supported President Trump's actions, saying they had only just happened. The three-time foreign minister said the crisis is 'the most serious I've ever dealt with' and that 'critical further escalation is avoided.' 'Diplomacy will deliver a more enduring resolution than further military action,' he said. China A flash commentary from China's government-run media asked whether the U.S. is repeating 'its Iraq mistake in Iran.' The online piece by CGTN, the foreign-language arm of the state broadcaster, said the U.S. strikes mark a dangerous turning point. 'History has repeatedly shown that military interventions in the Middle East often produce unintended consequences, including prolonged conflicts and regional destabilization,' it said, citing the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. It said a measured, diplomatic approach that prioritizes dialogue over military confrontation offers the best hope for stability in the Middle East. Japan Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is expected to hold a meeting with key ministers Sunday afternoon to discuss the impact from the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to Japan's NHK television. Japan's largest-circulation newspaper Yomiuri is distributing an extra edition on the attack in Tokyo. South Korea South Korea's presidential office said it would hold an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the security and economic ramifications of the U.S. strikes and potential South Korean responses. Australia Australia, which shuttered its embassy in Tehran and evacuated staff Friday, continued to push for a diplomatic end to the conflict. 'We have been clear that Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program has been a threat to international peace and security,' a government official said in a written statement. 'We note the U.S. President's statement that now is the time for peace.' 'The security situation in the region is highly volatile. We continue to call for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy.'
