During Donald Trump’s first term, he made clear that he wanted his foreign policy to be as unpredictable as possible, stating: “I don’t want them to know what I’m thinking.”
With the US’s recent attack on Iran, Trump certainly kept everyone in suspense. While US enemies may not have known what Trump was thinking, the problem was neither did US allies nor US legislators. Trump apparently did not bother to inform his own vice-president, J.D. Vance, when he had made the decision.
Trump has portrayed this as a strength, that he is the only one capable of getting certain things done in foreign policy because his unpredictability and risk-taking behaviour gives him more leverage.
But thus far he has had fewer successes than wins with this approach. His dalliance with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Trump’s first term only resulted in the acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear programme.
His great relationship with Vladimir Putin has so far led to no concessions from Moscow regarding the war in Ukraine, even causing Trump to effectively give up trying to resolve that crisis, at least for now.
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In Trump’s second term his Maga base has been a bit more divided than in his first. On the issue of tariffs, key Republican senators begged him to backpedal with concerns that the new tariffs would be catastrophic for the US economy – one of the issues that propelled him to victory. Yet he went ahead with the tariffs anyway, as some members of his base were in support.
With the Middle East crisis, Trump supporters appeared to be mostly against the US getting involved in a foreign conflict, with “no more wars” being a common slogan on the campaign trail.
In the lead up to the US strikes, key leaders in the Maga movement criticised the idea of the US getting involved in the conflict. Right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson told hawkish Senator Ted Cruz that he should know far more about the regime that the senator wanted to topple. Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green were also calling for the US to stay out of the conflict.
Before the attacks, a YouGov poll showed that 60% of Americans did not want the US to get involved in the conflict, which has since increased to 80%. However when asked more specifically about support for US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, as many as 94% of Maga Republicans gave their approval.
Is there voter backing?
Trump also believes he can sell the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as a huge win, making good on his promise to eradicate Iran’s nuclear programme. The US intelligence community is saying otherwise, but Trump has rejected this.
Trump took an early victory lap, claiming that Iran’s nuclear programme had been “completely destroyed”. It was arguably comparable to George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” announcement in May 2003, after Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was ousted by US-led forces. Bush’s approval ratings were as high as 70% in the immediate aftermath, but had plunged by 40 points by 2008 after five years of fighting the Iraqi insurgency that emerged in Hussein’s absence.
Trump seems to be revelling in taking more risks and being more unpredictable. As he has become increasingly bold in his second term, he has been more willing to test the loyalty of his base when they don’t agree with his instincts. Though the isolationist wing of Maga has been critical, Trump assumes that his base will unite and rally around him.
Trump was more careful to not betray his base in his first term. Trump had ordered strikes on Iran in 2019, but backed down at the last minute. But now he has gone so far as to suggest the door may be open to regime change in Tehran.
With the ceasefire now in place (at least in theory), Trump is heralding his action as a huge win. Iran has backed down after a limited attack on its nuclear facilities.
Just weeks ago, the US seemed less relevant in the Middle East, and more likely to follow Israel’s instructions than the other way around. With Trump’s confidence growing, it is now Trump that is telling Israel that he is not happy.
For Trump the risks involved were huge. There may appear to be the potential for some short-term domestic political gains if the ceasefire holds. But Trump may not have thought through the long-term implications of his decision on stability in the Middle East more generally, or what voters will think about his foreign policy gambles when the next election rolls around.
