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In December 2015, under the bright lights of a Las Vegas auditorium, more than a dozen Republican presidential hopefuls took to the debate stage to brandish their hawkish foreign-policy credentials.<\/p>\n
But then a funny thing happened.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
In December 2015, under the bright lights of a Las Vegas auditorium, more than a dozen Republican presidential hopefuls took to the debate stage to brandish their hawkish foreign-policy credentials.<\/p>\n
But then a funny thing happened.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump went on the attack<\/a>, criticizing his opponents\u2019 willingness to intervene in Iraq and elsewhere: \u201cIn my opinion, we\u2019ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could\u2019ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States \u2026 we would\u2019ve been a lot better off.\u201d Trump was immediately criticized for his departure from Republican orthodoxy. But it did little to dent his popular support. By 2015, more than half<\/a> of all Americans had come to believe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Trump\u2019s first election as U.S. president was, in part, enabled<\/a> by communities that had suffered significant casualties in the war on terror.<\/p>\n Iraq is not the only example of Trump\u2019s anti-war rhetoric. In his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump railed against the Biden administration\u2019s support for Ukraine, promising to end the war in 24 hours; after he won the election in November of that year, he memorably promised<\/a> to \u201cmeasure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end\u2014and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.\u201d As both candidate and president, Trump has consistently drawn strength from anti-war voters and those who view the war on terror as a mistake; he even picked J.D. Vance, who has been outspoken on these issues, as his vice president\u2014and, given presidential term limits, a potential successor.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that, on some level, Trump wants to be a peacemaker. But he hasn\u2019t made good on his promises. In his first term, he increased U.S. involvement in the Middle East and frequently yielded to hawkish advisors on questions of military force. In his second term, negotiations with Russia are languishing, and he\u2019s considering strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, potentially drawing the United States back into another Middle Eastern quagmire\u2014something opposed by many of his supporters.<\/p>\n Why, then, is Trump struggling to live up to his anti-war rhetoric? Because making peace and maintaining it require more than just wanting it.<\/p>\n Almost immediately upon taking office in January, Trump initiated processes to seek a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine and an end to Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. But his expectations were unusually high: He seemed to expect to solve these conflicts with relatively little effort and in weeks, not years.<\/p>\n Some of this is the result of his own biases. Long before he was a reality TV star, Trump was a New York real-estate developer, a background he shares with his chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff<\/a>. It\u2019s a background that tends to predispose the two toward hard bargaining. Get in the room, face-to-face with the other guy, they assume, and you can probably hash it out.<\/p>\n But while it\u2019s glib to say that war isn\u2019t real estate, it\u2019s really very different. War is the pinnacle of human disagreement<\/a>. It occurs when states with irreconcilable differences, ideologies, or interests choose to fight\u2014to spend blood and treasure\u2014rather than talk it out. Often, the issues at stake are complex, requiring more than just a handshake and some hard bargaining.<\/p>\n Admittedly, the Trump administration has had a few real successes: bringing home several hostages from Gaza and getting Russia and Ukraine into direct talks for the first time since 2022. But most of its peacemaking efforts have faltered on difficult points of contention, from the Iran\u2019s refusal to abandon domestic uranium enrichment to Israel\u2019s refusal to accept a long-term cease-fire with Hamas.<\/p>\n These stumbling blocks were easily predictable for those who have studied or worked on the issues. The MAGA distrust of expertise in foreign policy is a fair enough position given these experts\u2019 failures over the last few decades of U.S. foreign policy. But it has also produced a top-heavy approach to diplomacy, where personal overtures are prized, even as negotiators don\u2019t have sufficient background or knowledge to make the most of such interactions. It appears to have taken Witkoff several weeks, for example, to appreciate the importance of domestic enrichment<\/a> as a sticking point for Iranian negotiators, shortening the timeline for useful negotiations.<\/p>\n Indeed, complex negotiations also tend to take time. The Obama administration, for example, spent six months<\/a> negotiating an interim agreement on Iran\u2019s nuclear program in 2013, followed by almost two years of negotiations on the final Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Peace negotiations in the Korean War took two years<\/a>, during which the fighting continued. Even the first Trump administration\u2019s own opening to the Taliban took years<\/a> to produce the Doha deal.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s promises to solve conflicts overnight, or within 100 days of starting his second term, have been widely mocked. But no one really expected peace to happen in a few days in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. The bigger problem is that the short timelines\u2014and the president\u2019s own lack of patience\u2014make it far easier for those who want diplomacy to fail to manipulate him. The slow pace of Russia-Ukraine talks, for example, have produced a push<\/a> among congressional hawks to tighten sanctions on Russia. And Israel reportedly cited Trump\u2019s own unmet 60-day deadline<\/a> for Iranian nuclear talks in its decision to strike Iran.<\/p>\n This pressure is compounded by Trump\u2019s preference for coercive diplomacy and deadlines. If you threaten to escalate in the absence of concessions, it is awfully hard to climb down when your bluff is called. Trump also enjoys looking tough. He even started to claim credit for some of Israel\u2019s recent successful strikes on Iran. It\u2019s perhaps no surprise that reporting suggests Democrats criticizing Trump\u2019s tendency to chicken out<\/a> has increased his willingness to play hardball with Iran.<\/p>\n In short, Trump\u2019s own unrealistic expectations about peacemaking make him less likely to succeed.<\/p>\n The problem has been particularly acute in the case of Iran, perhaps the one area where mainstream Republicans remain steadfast in their commitment to Bush-era regime change. Recent weeks have seen a concerted push from Capitol Hill<\/a>, hawkish D.C. think tanks<\/a>, and even right-wing media<\/a> to push Trump toward military strikes on Iran, even as talks were apparently slowly proceeding. Even media magnate Rupert Murdoch has been quietly disparaging<\/a> Witkoff\u2019s efforts in an attempt to sway Trump.<\/p>\n But if Trump can find a way to resist the ticking time bomb of pro-war pressure and media frenzy, he could still pull a deal out of this. There are early signs, including a proposed two-week window in which Trump will decide on military strikes, that he has not abandoned diplomacy yet. Negotiations will occur in Geneva this weekend between Iranian and European diplomats, and channels of direct communication between Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi apparently remain open<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump could still be a peacemaker. But it would require the mercurial president, who is not normally known for his patience, to shift from ultimatum-based coercive diplomacy to a more constructive long-term approach.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n