It’s no secret that President Donald Trump’s foreign policy in his second term has been more militaristic.
Trump has floated claiming the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland for the United States. He launched strikes on seven different countries in 2025 and even resurrected the US policy of deposing Latin American leaders with the operation in Venezuela. He has killed more than 150 people on alleged drug boats via extrajudicial strikes — which might well be war crimes.
But his new attacks against Iran represent something else entirely.
By Trump’s own account, these are not limited strikes, but rather a “massive and ongoing” military campaign alongside Israel that he suggests is “war” and warns up-front could cost American lives. While his brief Iran strikes in June were about debilitating the country’s nuclear program, he’s indicated these carry the broader and bigger goal of regime change.
“All I want is freedom for the people,” Trump told the Washington Post shortly after 4 a.m. Eastern time, hours after the first strikes.
But that’s decidedly not what Trump and his team have promised the American people over the years — or even recently.
Indeed, among all Trump’s military actions, this one is the most contradictory.
The president has explicitly pitted himself against regime change in the Middle East and argued for a focus that’s close to home.
He invoked this position often during the 2016 campaign while running against the war in neighboring Iraq and pitching Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton as an irredeemable and “trigger-happy” hawk.
“We must abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria,” Trump said at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
He said toppling regimes without sufficient plans creates “power vacuums that are filled simply by terrorists.”
He said he would “break the cycle of regime change” and “abandon the policy of reckless regime change favored by my opponent.”
As recently as 2019, Trump doubled down.
“Our policy of never-ending war, regime change, and nation-building is being replaced by the clear-eyed pursuit of American interests,” Trump said. “It is the job of our military to protect our security, not to be the policeman of the world.”
“GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE,” he posted on social media that same year.
And his administration even this term has sought to downplay regime change.
In a speech in December, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised his department would “not be distracted by democracy-building interventionism, undefined wars, regime change …”
And after Trump struck Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, Hegseth specifically assured it wasn’t about regime change.
“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” Hegseth said.
To be fair, Trump’s comments on this front sometimes referred to ill-considered and hasty regime-change wars, rather than opposing regime change altogether.
Still, the thrust of his and Hegseth’s commentary was clearly that this type of conflict isn’t what the United States should get itself involved in, particularly in the Middle East and particularly absent an ironclad endgame and threat to the United States.
The administration has done little to lay out such a substantial strategic plan — or even a consistent justification — for this effort.
And Trump has said for months that his June strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, suggesting there remained little in the way of a direct threat to the United States.
Regime change in Iran is also contrary to what the Trump team pitched in the 2024 election. Indeed, at times they warned that voting for Kamala Harris would lead to such wars. Trump, they said, was the peace candidate.
This wasn’t just a casual talking point; Trump and people close to his campaign emphasized it in the closing weeks, pointing to the fact that hawkish former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney was supporting Harris.
“You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy,’” Trump said less than a week before Election Day.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller added on X: “Liz Cheney is Kamala’s top advisor. Liz wants to invade the whole Middle East. Kamala = WWIII. Trump = Peace.”
“A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney and a vote for war, war and more war,” Trump’s now-director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said. “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not start them.”
The national Republican Party pitched its ticket as the “pro-peace” option.
Miller added that “KAMALA WILL SEND YOUR SONS TO WAR.”
Now, Trump is explicitly telling Americans that their sons (and daughters) could die in a regime-change war.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties — that often happens in war,” Trump said early Saturday morning. “But we’re doing this not for now; we’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
Vice President JD Vance also wrote an op-ed in 2023 titled, “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars.”
Critics on social media Saturday quickly and widely circulated other Trump comments — ones he posted before all of the above, when Barack Obama was president.
“Remember what I previously said–Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is,” Trump posted in September 2013.
He added in November of that year that “Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!”
And in 2011: “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.”
Those comments certainly sting today. Obama ultimately did secure a deal with Iran (however good one believes that deal was) and never attacked it. Trump has now attacked Iran repeatedly, including after failing to negotiate his own deal recently.
Trump also wrongly predicted Obama would attack Iran on the eve of the 2012 election.
“Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran,” Trump posted in October 2012. “He is desperate.”
Today, Trump’s own numbers have declined substantially during his first year in office, and Republicans are staring down a difficult midterm election because of that.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi screenshotted and shared Trump’s 2012 post on Saturday, while calling the attack “wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate.”
