On Iran, Trump talks loudly and carries a big stick — but doesn't use it

In the space of about 24 hours, President Trump warned Iran that it had made “a very big mistake” in shooting down an American drone near its coast, then said he believed it wasn’t intentional, then scheduled a retaliatory strike, then canceled it at the last minute to avoid excessive Iranian casualties — continuing a pattern of ambivalence toward U.S. military action that has characterized his public life and presidency.

It also reflects how his public statements often don’t align with traditional United States foreign policy. During a September interview in the Oval Office, he said entering conflicts in the Middle East was the “worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country.”

Before taking office, Trump had been a recurring critic of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama for deploying thousands of troops to the Middle East. On Monday, the Pentagon announced it will send 1,000 more troops and military resources to the region amid an escalation in tensions with Iran.

Trump called the war in Afghanistan a “complete waste” in 2012. A year later he tweeted that the U.S. should end it “immediately.” But two years into his presidency, the longest war in the country’s history drags on in its 18th year with thousands of troops still deployed.

In December, Trump ordered the withdrawal of half of the U.S.’s current deployment in Afghanistan, about 7,000 troops. But the actual number who will be brought home will be much smaller, the Washington Post reported.

The president ordered a full withdrawal of 2,000 troops from Syria in the same week — resulting in backlash from foreign allies, the intelligence community and both Democrats and Republicans. Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest, citing his disagreement with Trump’s worldview. A full withdrawal never happened, and 200 troops remain in Syria.

Trump was critical of U.S. military involvement in Syria, which Obama initiated to help fight ISIS in the region. In 2013 Trump tweeted, “Stay out of Syria, we don't have the leadership to win wars or even strategize.”

The president’s record on Iraq, however, is much less consistent. He has repeatedly claimed he never supported the Iraq War. But he once did.

In a 2002 interview, Howard Stern asked Trump if he supported the invasion of Iraq. “Yeah, I guess so,” was his reply. A year later he called the war “a tremendous success from a military standpoint” in an interview with Fox News, adding that he liked the war because “Wall Street’s just going to go up like a rocket.”

He changed course 17 months later, saying in a 2004 Esquire interview that the Iraq War was a “mess.” He was adamant that he could have handled it better.

“Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over,” he told Esquire.

The only military conflict in the Middle East that Trump seems to have publicly approved of is the Gulf War, which reversed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In a 2004 interview with Playboy magazine, Trump explained why he supported the Gulf War but not the Iraq War.

“The Persian Gulf war was a different thing,” he said. “You couldn't get gasoline — that was a big difference — and interest rates got up to 21, 22 percent.”

Trump never was in uniform. He famously avoided serving in Vietnam with student and medical deferments. He said he “was never a fan” of what he recently described as “a terrible war.”

He has, however, expressed appreciation of military pageantry and, after witnessing a military parade in Paris, asked for one in Washington. But he changed his mind when the Pentagon put the cost at more than $90 million.

Trump’s favorite war seems to be World War II, which had little to do with the Middle East. In Normandy, France, for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, he praised WWII veterans as “among the very greatest Americans who will ever live.”

At a campaign speech in April 2016, Trump outlined his “America First” foreign policy, which involved pulling troops from the Middle East. He also explained why he thinks the U.S. went in the wrong direction after World War II.

“As time went on, our foreign policy began to make less and less sense,” he said. “Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, which led to one foreign policy disaster after another.”

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