Bored of peace? Trump keeps choosing war
The Straits Times
On the campaign trail in 2024, he repeatedly said he had started “no new wars". Read more at straitstimes.com.
Palm Beach - On a US late-night television show on Feb 28, the host played a clip from 2011 of a businessman warning that president Barack Obama “will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.”
That businessman was Mr Donald Trump. Fast-forward 15 years and Mr Trump, now in his own second term as president, ordered huge military strikes on Iran when talks with Tehran brought no breakthrough.
The commander-in-chief has repeatedly declared himself to be a “President of Peace”, boasted of his dealmaking ability in ending global conflicts, and complained of being cheated of the Nobel Peace Prize.
His rise to power in 2016 on an “America First” platform was partly fuelled by his rejection of bloody foreign wars waged by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Back on the campaign trail in 2024, he repeatedly said he had started “no new wars”. After returning to the White House he slammed the “so-called nation-builders” who “wrecked far more nations than they built”.
In line with his vision of himself, Mr Trump earlier in 2026 held the first meeting of his “Board of Peace” – a body originally created to uphold the Gaza ceasefire that has morphed into a would-be United Nations featuring several authoritarians.
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