Donald Trump has framed his political career around being a peacemaker at heart — an image derided by critics but internalized by many of his supporters. Now he’s testing that image’s reality: positioning himself as a president who can swiftly end wars, even if that means first getting involved in them.
The political impact all comes down to whether the war in Iran really does wind down in the next few days as the president now says it will, strategists from both parties said.
Trump and his administration have repeatedly said they hoped the weekend strike against Iran would be a one-off event, to be followed quickly by diplomacy and de-escalation from Iran. On Monday, Iran launched missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar, which analysts considered a muted response to the attacks on the country’s nuclear program. Trump wrote soon after that “perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region,” and later said, “There will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.”
If the conflict does not escalate further, Trump will likely avoid political blowback, strategists said. Their reasoning: Bombings alone might not be enough to alienate some voters who are skeptical of military intervention overseas.
“I think the anti-war strand is a much weaker part of that nationalism movement than for, say, economic populism or immigration,” said one Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “And I don’t recall those folks crediting Biden with ending our engagement with Afghanistan.”
The bombings won Trump plaudits from some Republicans who have been critics in the past, including his former vice president, Mike Pence, and his former adversary in the GOP presidential primary last year, Nikki Haley.
But not everyone in Trump’s party is viewing it that way.
“Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted on X Monday. “It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!”
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie said Trump’s recent moves amount to a betrayal of the anti-war voters he once courted.
“‘Three bombings to neutralize Iran’ might be the new ‘two weeks to slow the spread,’” Massie told CNN on Sunday, comparing the strike on the Middle Eastern country to government efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus during the 2020 pandemic.
The Kentucky Republican and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna are leading a war powers resolution in the House to prohibit the country’s further involvement in Iran. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has opposed the resolution.
Massie, of course, is often at odds with Trump on policy issues, and the president’s political operation has vowed to unseat him in a GOP primary next year.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found just 32% of adults said they would support further strikes on Iran, compared to 49% of adults who did not. A large majority of Americans, 84%, said they were concerned about the growing conflict in the region, according to the survey, including 74% of Republicans.
Trump’s run for president in 2015 was marked by his promise to avoid what he considered disastrous foreign wars, mocking President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003. Staying out of war was also an explicit part of his campaign last year, when the GOP tagged itself as the “pro-peace ticket,” and among the promises the president made during his inaugural address.
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” Trump said in January. “That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier.
Alex Stroman, a Republican strategist, downplayed the significance of the weekend’s bombings in Iran. He compared the airstrikes to the decision Trump made during his first term in 2020 to assassinate Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani, an action that led to little sustained backlash from anti-war voters. If voters weren’t put off by that killing, he said, they likely won’t be angry now.
“I don’t think this action is out of line with anything he did in his first administration,” Stroman said. “In fact, I think it’s a continuation.”
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Alex Roarty is a reporter at NOTUS.