Strikes on Iran mark an abrupt interventionist turn for Trump

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Sporting a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap in the White House situation room, Donald Trump led his country into battle.

As the U.S. President watched with a handful of cabinet members and close advisers Saturday evening, seven B2 stealth bombers dropped 14 massive ordnance penetrators, or “bunker-busters,” on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. A U.S. submarine, meanwhile, fired more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles at a third facility in Isfahan.

The photos of Mr. Trump overseeing the attacks in a MAGA hat – released a few hours later on the White House’s social-media feeds – highlighted the moment’s jarring contrast: long an isolationist who vowed to decrease American involvement in foreign conflicts, Mr. Trump has pulled an about-face that risks plunging the country into a major military entanglement.

In a televised address later in the evening, Mr. Trump warned that Iran faced “far greater” attacks if the country did not “make peace.” By Sunday, the President was even threatening to topple Tehran’s theocratic government, in what would be a major escalation of the conflict.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social network.

The exact reasons for Mr. Trump’s abrupt turn to interventionism are unclear. It comes after pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to join Israel’s war against Iran and amid a battle within the President’s own MAGA movement. Whatever the cause, it’s a sharp pivot from the President’s first political campaign a decade ago.

When he came from behind to win the Republican presidential nomination and the presidency in 2016, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq and his fellow party members who had led the U.S. into “forever wars.” During his first term, he made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Before his re-election last year, Mr. Trump presented himself as a peacemaker and accused then-president Joe Biden of fomenting a third world war by arming Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. He promised to swiftly end both that conflict and Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this month, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Netanyahu not to attack Iran while the U.S. aimed to negotiate a deal with Tehran to end its nuclear program. Mr. Netanyahu attacked anyway and put pressure on Mr. Trump to join, arguing it was the best chance of fulfilling the President’s goal of stopping Iran from enriching uranium.

Mr. Netanyahu’s main desire was the use of the massive ordnance penetrators, 13.6-tonne bombs that only the U.S. possesses, designed to destroy subterranean targets. The attack in Iran is the first time they have been used on the battlefield.

In a video message for Mr. Trump after the bombings, Mr. Netanyahu said the President’s “bold decision” to attack “will change history.” The U.S. military was more circumspect, saying Operation Midnight Hammer, which started at 6:40 p.m. Eastern Time Saturday, or 2:10 a.m. Sunday Iran Standard Time, inflicted severe damage on Iran’s nuclear sites but the full effect was not yet clear. Iran confirmed the sites had been hit but said nuclear activities would continue.

Mr. Trump is known to be prone to flattery, as evidenced by a recent tour of Gulf states, during which he even accepted a new presidential airplane donated by Qatar’s royal family.

Pulling Mr. Trump away from attacking Iran in recent days were some of MAGA’s loudest voices. And many of them reprised their criticism of another foreign military intervention on the weekend.

“This is not our fight,” tweeted far-right Georgia legislator Marjorie Taylor Greene. Ohio Representative Warren Davidson said “it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s constitutional” for bombing Iran.

Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist at the start of his previous term, said on his podcast that the President is hinting at an “open-ended” commitment to fighting. “I don’t think we’ve been dealing from the top of the deck,” he said, adding such talk was not what “a lot of MAGA wanted to hear.”

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Mr. Trump did not seek congressional permission nor notify legislators until after the attacks, personally owning the decision to go ahead.

Still, Mr. Trump appeared to have a solid grip over his party, and movement, for now.

Many MAGA influencers lined up behind the President, joining forces with more traditional hawkish Republicans who have long supported such military action. “This is a surgical strike, operated perfectly,” wrote pro-Trump conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who had previously questioned how bombing Iran could fit with an America First foreign policy.

The President has a strong track record of holding on to his core support, which has not wavered during the tumultuous ups and downs of his political career, and of driving his most vociferous intraparty opponents out of office.

He said Sunday that he aimed to do just that against one Republican detractor of military action, libertarian Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie. “MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!” he wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post.

Before Mr. Trump’s explicit call for “regime change” in Iran, some of his cabinet rushed to reassure his isolationist base that the attack would not spiral into a larger conflict.

Here’s what Trump said in his address to the nation after U.S. struck Iranian nuclear facilities

“This mission was not and has not been about regime change. The President authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told a media briefing at the Pentagon on Sunday morning. “Anything can happen in conflict, we acknowledge that, but the scope of this was intentionally limited.”

In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Vice-President JD Vance insisted Washington could carry out such strikes without the fighting expanding. “We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.

Mr. Vance demurred when asked when exactly Mr. Trump made the decision to attack. The President had said on Thursday that he would decide within two weeks.

How broad the conflict becomes, however, may not be under Mr. Trump’s control.

Before the bombings, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had said that the U.S. would suffer “irreparable damage” if it joined Israel’s war effort.

Iran denies that it has been trying to build nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear sites are for civilian purposes such as electricity generation. Earlier this year, Mr. Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Iran was “not building a nuclear weapon.” Israel has said that Tehran’s enriching of uranium means it could quickly build a bomb. Mr. Trump indicated over the last week that he agrees with Israel’s assessment.

Even before the attack on Iran, Mr. Trump had shown some evidence that he was moving away – at least rhetorically – from isolationism. For several months late last year and earlier this year, he spoke frequently of annexing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, referring to the U.S.’s northern neighbour as the future “51st state.”

And in announcing the attack on Iran Saturday night, the President adopted a celebratory tone. On Truth Social, he said U.S. forces had dropped a “full payload of BOMBS” on Fordow.

“The strikes were a spectacular military success,” he said later at the White House. “I want to just thank everybody and, in particular, God.”