Trump, who campaigned against 'endless' wars, enters Iran with no end date
Source: NBC News
March 2, 2026, 4:53 PM EST
To win the White House in 2016, Donald Trump first had to get by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the son and brother of two past presidents inextricably linked with U.S. wars in the Middle East.
Attacking the Bush family dynasty and its legacy became a feature of Trumps campaign. And that meant doubling down on criticism of the Iraq War that President George W. Bush had led the United States into under the premise of finding weapons of mass destruction that never materialized.
The war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, Trump responded, when asked at a Republican presidential debate in February 2016 if he still believed, as he said he did in 2008, that Bush should have been impeached for it. We can make mistakes, Trump added. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq.
The moment was one of many in Trumps long history of denouncing forever wars and promising, as president himself, to keep the U.S. out of the sorts of foreign entanglements that could lead to them. But one year into his second term, Trump has ordered military action in multiple countries, including the January strike on Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro. And now with the war in Iran, Trump has plunged America into its most significant conflict since the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without any congressional approval.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-campaign-endless-wars-iran-no-end-date-rcna261323
LilElf70
(1,503 posts)I'm shocked.......
twodogsbarking
(18,302 posts)DJ Synikus Makisimus
(1,336 posts)That's a shocker.
LisaL
(47,384 posts)Cause that's what they voted for.