WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump captivated the White House swearing to wind down the nation many foreign entanglements and put “America First.” Since his administration in recent days has dispatched mixed signals on the prospects of a military conflict with Iran, Trump campaign trail promise is being examined.
With the 2020 elections drawing closer, the political pitfalls ahead for the first-term Republican president could be consequential.
While Trump enjoys overwhelming support from his party, there is little passion among his loyalists for a new military conflict in the Middle East. Many are in favor of giving him the benefit of the doubt for now, but the chain of recent moves has ignited concerns that the administration was propagating toward war. Post this week if the U.S. was going to war with Iran, Trump said simply: “I hope not.”
Aware of the potential backlash from within his party, the president is trying to play down the possibility of hostilities. He held the door open for negotiations over Iran nuclear program and malign activities in the region amid reports that he was pushing back against his more hawkish advisers’ preference for a military solution.
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Prominent Trump supporters offered a pointed warning on Friday about the prospect of a new war, which they view as a direct violation of his “America First” pledge.
“It would be a disaster for him and for the country getting into another military engagement in the Middle East .It does concern me that the president has (national security adviser John) Bolton and a lot of these neocons advising him. That clearly not what he ran on and what most Americans want.” said Corey Stewart, who led Trump 2016 campaign in Virginia.
Trump said, “They put out so many false messages that Iran is totally confused,” he told a crowd of real estate agents in Washington, complaining about media coverage of his administration recent moves. “I don’t know, that might be a good thing.”
J.D. Gordon, director of national security for Trump first campaign, remarked, “Preventing an aggressive state sponsor of terrorism from acquiring nuclear weapons through primarily economic and diplomatic pressure isn’t as simple as many people would like us to believe.”
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said “I think one should never discount the political calculation, which is that he knows a significant part of his base, including tens of millions of evangelical Christians, agree with him.”
There are clear signals of an armed conflict in the area and this has a genuinely high possibility.