The U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran Saturday cemented Trump’s decade-long transformation from a candidate who in 2016 called the Iraq War a “big, fat mistake” to a president warning Americans to prepare for potential casualties overseas and encouraging Iranians to “seize control of your destiny.” The strikes were also at odds with Trump’s warnings during the 2024 campaign that his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, was surrounded by “war hawks” eager to send troops overseas. “The question is whether Iran’s goal is simply to outlast America and whether Trump has strategic attention deficit disorder, which will allow the Iranians to rise from the ashes and claim victory,” said Michael Rubin, a historian at the American Enterprise Institute who worked as a staff adviser on Iran and Iraq at the Pentagon from 2002 to 2004. And there was outright opposition from some who have long criticized overseas entanglements, including Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican of Kentucky, who lamented the start of “another preemptive war.” Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who was once a close Trump ally, rejected the president’s warning of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Author: Associated Press
Published at: 2026-02-28 22:48:15
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