US President Donald Trump has long advocated for keeping the US out of Middle Eastern wars. By joining Israel’s offensive against Iran, he is making a dramatic geopolitical u-turn.
After days of deliberation and mixed messages, Trump launched a strike against three Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday (Jun 21), bolstering Israel’s efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme and drawing the US into a heated regional conflict.
The bombings, which struck sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, came just days after he suggested he would wait for as much as two weeks to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran.
Speaking from the White House late on Saturday, Trump argued that Iran must be prevented from having an atomic bomb and said the US fulfilled its objective of destroying their nuclear sites.
Trump also pressured Iran to return to the negotiating table, threatening more attacks if they don’t work toward an agreement – or retaliate against the US.
“This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” the president said in an address to the nation.
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Consequential choice
While Trump has approved military action in the past, this moment marks a consequential choice for a leader who rose to power with an anti-war stance and was welcomed by voters weary of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. He hardened that posture in his 2024 campaign with attacks on then-President Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He also has eschewed military action at times – calling off a strike on Iran in 2019 that was designed as retaliation for shooting down a US drone, saying he did not see it as proportionate.
In his second inaugural address in January, Trump pledged to measure success “not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”
And since taking office five months ago, Trump’s focus on the Middle East has largely been on deals that bring US investment rather than military expansion. During a glitzy trip through the region in May, he proclaimed he wants its future to be “defined by commerce, not chaos”.
The strikes injected further anxiety into the global economy following the scattershot rollout of Trump’s global tariffs. Around a fifth of the world’s daily oil supply goes through the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbours.
Global crude oil traders have been on edge. In an extreme scenario in which the Strait of Hormuz were shut, oil could surge beyond US$130 a barrel, weighing on global growth and driving consumer prices higher, according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis.
In the days leading up to the strike, Trump and his advisers had suggested that any action would be limited. Republicans emphasised that idea on Saturday – before the president threatened further attacks.
“This is not the start of a forever war,” Senator Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a post on X. “There will not be American boots on the ground in Iran. This was a precise, limited strike, which was necessary and by all accounts was very successful.“
For Trump and many of his supporters, the hope is that this military action will echo the assassination of a top Iranian general in 2020. After the US strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Trump stressed that he did not want a wider war. An Iranian response resulted in no casualties, and the situation did not escalate.
Signs that Trump was becoming more open to the possibility of military action emerged last week when he abruptly departed the Group of Seven leaders summit in Canada to deal with the Middle East conflict.
After months of trying to talk Tehran into making a nuclear deal, negotiations with special envoy Steve Witkoff had made little progress and Israel launched its initial attack. Trump held open the possibility of reopening discussions with his two-week ultimatum.
But by Friday, Trump dismissed talks between three European nations and Iran that failed to deliver a breakthrough. And he said his patience with Tehran had just about run out.
The question going forward is what the Iranian response will be and whether the US could be drawn into a longer conflict. Members of Congress have indicated they could challenge Trump’s authority to unilaterally wage war on Iran without their approval.
Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who co-sponsored legislation that would force a vote on any US war with Iran, raised that prospect on Saturday, saying lawmakers should vote on the bill “to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war”.
A handful of Republicans also questioned the constitutionality of the move.
“This is not Constitutional,” said Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who co-sponsored the war powers measure.
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war but the War Powers Resolution allows the president to insert US forces into a conflict without a vote, as long as lawmakers are notified within 48 hours and the engagement must end within 60 days unless lawmakers allow otherwise.
The potential for US engagement opened up a rift recently among Trump’s supporters inside and outside the White House. Foreign policy hawks embraced an attack as an opportunity to show strength and deny Iran a nuclear weapon, while isolationists argued US should stay out of the fight and focus on issues like immigration.
“This was the right call. The regime deserves it,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and longtime proponent of attacking Iran.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, has been on the other side, saying in a post on X: “This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.”
Trump was drawn into the fray, clashing with conservative media personality Tucker Carlson, who has called on the US to stay out of the conflict.
On Jun 18, he downplayed any issues, saying “my supporters are for me” and adding that Carlson “called and apologised the other day because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong”.
Longtime time Trump ally Steve Bannon said on his podcast on Saturday that Trump will need to explain himself, but that he thinks his base will ultimately remain loyal.
“There are a lot of MAGA (Make America Great Again) that’s not happy about this,” he said. “I believe he will get MAGA on board, all of it, but he’s got to explain exactly and go through this.” BLOOMBERG
