When it came, America’s involvement in the war against Iran seemed to be over before it even began. Seven B-2 bombers struck Iran’s most sensitive underground nuclear site, Fordow, while 30 Tomahawk missiles also hit Natanz and Isfahan. Almost immediately after, Trump declared ‘now is the time for peace!’, signalling his intention to not pursue a broader or more protracted campaign against Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The following day he declared the entire conflict over, hailing the end of a so-called ‘12-day war’, warning both Israeli and Iranian leaders to abide by his unilateral declaration of a ceasefire.

It was precisely what Trump’s MAGA base was hoping for. In the days preceding his decision to strike Iran, the debate among MAGA supporters was particularly acerbic and bitter; even more than usual in the already highly charged and gladiatorial arena of Beltway politics. ‘Who in the hell are you [Netanyahu] to lecture the American people?’ longtime Trump confidante Steve Bannon railed on his War Room podcast. ‘Who are you to jam us into this situation, which you knew you couldn’t finish… Quit coming to us to finish it.’ Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was even more emphatic, stating ‘there would be no bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first… this is not our fight.’ The prospect of a military confrontation with Iran excised several anxieties of the MAGA base, including the fear of being pulled into a ground war, or into a nation-building enterprise, forcing regime change, or just pulling away from Trump’s populist-nationalist agenda, which prioritises issues at home.

Trump was largely unmoved as pressure continued ratcheting up on Tehran. ‘My supporters are for me. My supporters are America First,’ he said. ‘My supporters don’t want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon.’ That assertion was coupled with reassurances, too. ‘I’m not looking to fight, but if it’s a choice between fighting and them having a nuclear weapon, then you have to do what you have to do.’

This was not the first time Trump found himself at odds with MAGA purists urging isolation and retreat from foreign adventures. Indeed, a review of his actions in the Middle East during his first term demonstrates anything but an isolationist approach. Despite his promises to not embroil the country in ‘new wars’, Trump expressed American power repeatedly through both military and diplomatic force by bombing Syria twice, assassinating one of Iran’s leading generals, Qasem Soleimani, withdrawing from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal), and using a variety of coercive sanctions and tariffs to bring Turkey’s President Erdogan to heel.

What it reveals is that Trump operates a praxis presidency in the Middle East, one where ideas are tried in a way that favours swift unilateral action over the unipolarity and multilateralism that traditionally defined America’s standing in the world. Viewed in this way, Trump’s recent confrontation with Iran is entirely at one with his longstanding – and remarkably consistent – approach to the Middle East, which looks to strengthen America’s national security while seeking simultaneously to reduce its footprint in the region.

This is done in three notable ways: first, establishing deterrence through dramatic, splenetic bursts of kinetic activity when needed (e.g. against Iran); second, using sanctions and tariffs as a tool of both coercive and reward power (e.g. against Turkey); and third, empowering local allies to succeed on their own terms through enhanced trading opportunities (as demonstrated in the Gulf and with Syria).

Just over two months after being sworn into office for the first time, in April 2017, President Trump fired cruise missiles at Syria following a chemical weapons attack by Bashar al-Assad in the town of Khan Shaykhun, which killed 89 people. ‘[He] choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many,’ Trump observed. ‘Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.’

His actions stood in sharp relief to those of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who had warned that the use of chemical weapons would constitute a ‘red line’ for his administration, only to leave the threat unenforced after Assad first used them in Ghouta in 2013. It constituted a significant and consequential moment in the erosion of the chemical weapons taboo, whereby regimes holding such weapons largely relied upon their mere possession for deterrence alone. ‘It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons,’ Trump noted.

Almost exactly a year later, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons again, this time in the city of Douma. Again, Trump felt compelled to act, striking four Syrian government facilities. The same factors which spurred him into action over Khan Shaykhun appeared to motivate him again: humanitarian concern and the need to establish deterrence. ‘The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air,’ he noted. ‘These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster.’ The goal was to ‘establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons. Establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States.’

Perhaps most dramatically, Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, an Iranian general and commander of the Quds Force, a highly specialised arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which oversaw Iran’s aggressive expansionism into both Syria and Iraq. A towering regional figurehead, Soleimani operated as part-general and part-politician, he directly controlled Iran’s proxies in Iraq, helping them consolidate power as Baghdad struggled under the ISIS threat; reversed the fortunes of the beleaguered Assad regime in Damascus; and bolstered Hezbollah’s stranglehold over Lebanon. He also served as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s de facto regional envoy. His assassination was as spectacular as it was unexpected, stunning regional observers while sparking fears over the nature and form of Iran’s response.

There was widespread opposition from Trump’s MAGA base to all of these attacks – which helps contextualise the current rupture within his base over the recent decision to attack Iran. Notable figures immediately denounced Trump after the 2017 missile attacks, with Alex Jones lending himself to characteristic histrionics shouting, ‘F***  Trump!’ and ‘I’m not in a f****** cult for Donald Trump’ during a livestream.

Fox News host and Trump supporter, Laura Ingraham, tweeted: ‘Missiles flying. Rubio’s happy. McCain ecstatic. Hillary’s on board. A complete policy change in 48 hrs.’ She was similarly upset following Trump’s attack on Syria the following year, saying ‘what do we really accomplish here, tonight, in Syria? This is not why Donald Trump got elected,’ on her show, the Ingraham Angle. She even locked horns with Trump’s then Deputy Assistant, Sebastian Gorka. ‘Don’t get on your moral high horse, with me, okay?,’ she blasted as he attempted to defend the decision. ‘Don’t play that game.’

Opposition from normally Trump-friendly Fox hosts continued in 2020 following the assassination of Soleimani. ‘Is Iran really the greatest threat we face’, asked Tucker Carlson, ‘and why are we continuing to ignore the decline of our own country in favour of jumping into another quagmire from which there is no obvious exit?’

Trump resisted engaging with his MAGA base over these issues, leaving them to debate it among themselves, although the manner in which he has framed his decisions offers insight into the principles guiding his approach in the Middle East.

Consider that, when he was first elected in 2016, Trump had pledged to immediately withdraw from Afghanistan. Then, just over seven months after taking office he struck a more temperate tone when addressing troops at Fort Myer, Arlington. ‘My original instinct was to pull out – and, historically, I like following my instincts,’ he said. ‘But all my life I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.’ In the event, Trump avoided any discussion of a withdrawal date and committed himself to pursuing ‘an honourable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives’. The hopes of his MAGA base were dashed. Breitbart – an online magazine which had been instrumental in supporting Trump’s 2016 campaign – was outraged, running pieces comparing him to Obama.

Yet, Trump’s calculation was dispassionately driven by one of his core principles: projecting strength against foreign threats. At the time, Afghanistan was home to 20 designated terrorist organisations – a greater concentration than anywhere else in the world; a remarkable statistic when considering that the Syrian civil war was still at its most febrile. ‘Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win,’ he said triumphantly.

That doctrine was also on display during Trump’s missile strikes on Syria. Following Assad’s decision to use chemical weapons in 2018, after Trump had already demonstrated his willingness to act the previous year, he called the new attack ‘a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime’. Explaining the rationale behind his action, Trump said:

The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread, and use of chemical weapons. Establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States.

The contours of his Middle East policy become, therefore, somewhat clearer. Trump is prepared to engage in short bursts of tangible, concrete action to secure America’s national security interests. This is far from being isolationist, which is what Trump is often accused of being. Instead, it signals a significant shift in US policy from America’s previous nation-building approach led by its post-Cold War unipolarity (further burnished by its sense of righteous purpose after 9/11) to one of unilateralism. Under this doctrine, America eschews protracted and expensive engagements in the Middle East while being prepared to act militarily when deemed necessary. Such engagements are designed to have a shocking impact, demonstrating awesome power and unpredictability of American might, while simultaneously providing off-ramps from actual conflict. If Trump is the pilot, then his policy is one of firing the engines on full-thrust before careening down the runway and then aborting the take-off at the final moment.

This was perhaps most dramatically revealed in the decision to assassinate Soleimani, who had hitherto been thought of as untouchable. A more conventional politician would have likely shied away from an assassination. Yet Trump is hardly a conventional calculator, and decided to act after determining that Soleimani posed a threat to US forces operating in the region. ‘Under my leadership, America’s policy is unambiguous: To terrorists who harm or intend to harm any American, we will find you; we will eliminate you,’ Trump said. ‘We will always protect our diplomats, service members, all Americans, and our allies.’ He continued:

The United States has the best military by far, anywhere in the world. We have best intelligence in the world. If Americans anywhere are threatened, we have all of those targets already fully identified, and I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary. And that, in particular, refers to Iran.

All the contours of his policy are illuminated again by his justification of the attack. The United States will project strength and establish deterrence through decisive, dramatic, and daring actions, working unilaterally at the discretion of the Commander-in-Chief. A memetic version of this was tweeted by Charlie Kirk, a Trump loyalist and founder of Turning Point USA. The meme contrasts a picture of Dick Cheney and Donald Trump. Next to the former’s picture a caption reads: ‘Iraq is building a nuke. I need 500k troops, eight years and $2 trillion.’ Next to Trump’s it says: ‘Iran is building a nuke. Gimmie [sic] 10 20-year-old pilots and 45 minutes in Iranian air space.’

This emphasis on decisive unilateralism is underscored by another aspect of Trump’s approach to the Middle East, eschewing America’s costly nation-building misadventures. During his visit to Riyadh in May, Trump seemed to eulogise the post-9/11 neocon moment, symbolically laying it to rest. ‘The so‑called nation‑builders wrecked far more nations than they built – and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,’ he said. ‘The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so‑called “nation‑builders”, neocons, or liberal non‑profits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Baghdad and so many other cities.’

Instead, he credited the Gulf States with finding their own way, governing according to their own traditions and norms, building countries fit for their needs and peoples. Although his denunciation of neoconservatism received widespread attention, it has actually been a consistent feature of Trump’s worldview, guiding much of his approach during his first term in office.

Despite disappointing his base in 2017 by not announcing an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump also made it clear, ‘we will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands, or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over.’ This was far from a threadbare statement. Its principles were very much on display when he acted against both Syria and Iran.

In the same speech in which he justified bombing Syria on national security grounds, he also reassured his supporters that this would not be the start of a longer campaign. ‘Americans have no illusions. We cannot purge the world of evil, or act everywhere there is tyranny,’ he said. ‘No amount of American blood or treasure can produce lasting peace and security in the Middle East. It’s a troubled place… The United States will be a partner and a friend, but the fate of the region lies in the hands of its own people.’

Coupled with the sabre-rattling and gusto behind Soleimani’s assassination, Trump similarly contextualised his actions while extending an off-ramp to the Iranians. ‘I have deep respect for the Iranian people. They are a remarkable people, with an incredible heritage and unlimited potential. We do not seek regime change,’ he said. ‘However, the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilise its neighbours, must end, and it must end now.’

Unlike his predecessors – and many of his more conventional peers – Trump does not lend himself to abstract or theoretical considerations with extended periods of indecision. On the contrary, his posturing in the Middle East has been defined by rapid decision-making. Although this can sometimes lead to harmful unintended consequences, the lack of a doctrinaire approach means Trump can also row back quickly and reassert control – often producing results.

Consider the fallout from his decision to unexpectedly announce a withdrawal of troops from northern Syria in October 2019. Tensions had already been growing between the Turks – who have long worried about Kurdish separatism – and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led paramilitary with whom the United States collaborated on counter-ISIS initiatives. Ankara worried about the presence of a highly trained, empowered, and armed Kurdish militia operating along much of their southern border (having taken control of north-eastern Syria, with everything east of the Euphrates).

Turkey had repeatedly threatened to act against the SDF, hoping to drive them away from the border. Two days after Trump’s announcement, Turkey began assaulting SDF positions, which risked undermining counter-ISIS efforts because the SDF retain responsibility for the detention of – at the time – an estimated 80,000 people associated with ISIS (although numbers have declined over the years due to repatriation and reintegration efforts).

With SDF efforts now being redirected towards repelling Turkey’s assault, fears mounted that ISIS might exploit the situation and launch a jailbreak. Trump was stirred into action and, on 14 October, issued an Executive Order imposing ‘powerful’ sanctions on key officials in the Turkish government while also hiking steel tariffs up to 50 per cent and suspending negotiations on a $100 billion trade deal with Ankara. Again, Trump framed his decision as being necessary to ‘preserve the safety and security of the United States and its citizens’, which the Turkish incursion jeopardised. ‘I am fully prepared to swiftly destroy Turkey’s economy if Turkish leaders continue down this dangerous and destructive path,’ he warned.

Three days later, Vice-President Pence and Secretary Pompeo were in Ankara hailing a ceasefire. ‘With the implementation of the ceasefire, the United States will not impose any further sanctions on Turkey,’ Pence stated, explaining that, after a five-day grace period in which each warring side would make concessions, the ceasefire would become permanent. ‘And once a permanent ceasefire is in effect, the President has agreed to withdraw the economic sanctions that were imposed.’ There it was. Within two weeks of the incursion starting, Trump had imposed hefty sanctions, threatened to crater the Turkish economy, dispatched his Vice-President and Secretary of State to Ankara, agreed a ceasefire and lifted the sanctions.

He had used exactly the same approach the previous year after growing frustrated over Turkey’s refusal to release Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor arrested in 2016 on charges of terrorism and espionage. After Trump did Erdogan a favour by arranging for Israel to release Ebru Özkan, a Turkish national held there on suspicion of helping Hamas, Erdogan reciprocated only by moving Brunson from jail to house arrest. Incensed at the sleight, Trump had the Treasury impose Magnitsky Act sanctions on the Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, and the Justice Minister, Abdulhamit Gül. Days later he also doubled tariffs on Turkish steel (to 50 per cent) and aluminium (to 20 per cent). The Turkish lira slumped to a record low against the dollar, plunging 18 per cent on the day Trump announced tariffs. ‘Turkey has taken advantage of the United States for many years,’ he tweeted. ‘We are cutting back on Turkey!’ In the event, Erdogan held out longer than in 2019, resisting Trump’s pressure for two months, before releasing Brunson in October. A reversal of the sanctions imposed on Soylu and Gül followed shortly afterwards.

A similar policy was applied – but in reverse – with regards to sanctions relief in Syria. Before Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May there was little to suggest Syria would feature prominently on his agenda. Yet, shortly after his arrival, rumours began swirling that he would make a flagship statement on the country’s future and might even meet with the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. In the event, decisions were made at blistering pace, with Trump opting to do both. Delivering his keynote address, Trump noted that the sanctions imposed on the country had been there to constrain the excesses of the brutal Assad regime. Now, Syria had emerged from more than half a century of draconian Baathist rule to embrace a new future. ‘It’s their time to shine,’ Trump declared. ‘We’re taking them [sanctions] all off… so I say good luck.’

Despite sharp divisions within Trump’s Middle East and national security teams about the wisdom of such a move, the administration offered relief on conditional terms. The Treasury explained:

US sanctions relief has been extended to the new Syrian government with the understanding that the country will not offer a safe haven for terrorist organizations and will ensure the security of its religious and ethnic minorities. The US will continue monitoring Syria’s progress and developments on the ground.

Coupled with that conditionality was also an upbeat tone, ‘the Assad regime’s brutality against its own people and support for terrorism in the region has come to an end, and a new chapter unfolds for the Syrian people’. Notably, the instrument for relief, known as Syria General License 25, doesn’t change the underlying sanctions law. It merely offers a temporary permit for trade, which the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) can quickly rescind if Syria slips back into violence. Restrictions under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act were similarly not rescinded, but are now subject to a 180-day waiver, which must be then re-approved. In his waiver certification, Secretary Rubio framed the move as being ‘in the national security interests of the United States’, a constant theme of Trump’s engagement with the region.

‘Security and stability will lift millions into lives of safety and success,’ Trump said about sanctions relief in Riyadh. ‘Everywhere we can, my administration is pursuing peaceful engagement, offering a strong and steady hand of friendship to all that will take it in good faith.’ Crucially, however, Trump has not signed a blank cheque. Yes, sanctions relief for Syria came suddenly and dramatically – a signature of his style – but it rests on a conditional legal premise that can be rowed back just as quickly as it was extended.

The Riyadh speech was also used not just to extend an opportunity to Syria, but to also praise the Gulf for embracing organic and authentic growth on their own terms. ‘While you have been constructing the world’s tallest skyscrapers in Jeddah and Dubai, Tehran’s 1979 landmarks are collapsing into rubble and dust,’ he said, using the opportunity to baldly compare how the Gulf has progressed through its embrace of modernity while Iran continues to be robbed by robed reactionaries. He explained:

There could be no sharper contrast with the path you have pursued on the Arabian Peninsula than the disaster unfolding right across in the Gulf of Iran. Think of that […] While the [Gulf] Arab states are focused on becoming pillars of regional stability and world commerce, Iran’s leaders have focused on stealing their people’s wealth to fund terror and bloodshed abroad. The most tragic of all, they have dragged down an entire region with them. Countless lives were lost in the Iranian effort to maintain a crumbling regime in Syria. Look at what happened.

Yet, Trump struck an almost Palmerstonian approach, as he also used the moment to offer a reprieve. ‘I have never believed in having permanent enemies,’ he said, echoing Lord Palmerston’s maxim of British foreign policy: we have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Indeed, much like Palmerston, Trump has also displayed a dogged willingness to pursue gunboat diplomacy to achieve his aims. ‘I’m here today not merely to condemn the past chaos of Iran’s leaders, but to offer them a new path and a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future,’ he said, before continuing:

As I’ve shown repeatedly, I am willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world, even if our differences may be very profound, which obviously they are in the case of Iran […] If I can make a deal with Iran, I’ll be very happy if… But if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbours, then we will have no choice but to inflict massive, maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero, like I did before.

This passage perfectly captures the triumvirate of Trump’s considerations when engaging with the Middle East. There is the obvious starting point of acknowledging Iran’s belligerent and malign regional presence through its use of terrorist proxies and the pursuit of nuclear weapons. There is also the exasperation that they would choose those goals when contrasted against the bevelled and burnished glamour of the skyscrapers being built by their neighbours, and then the transactional offer of a redemptive deal undergirded by the threat of coercive action. ‘Iran can have a much brighter future but we’ll never allow America and its allies to be threatened with terrorism or nuclear attack,’ Trump said. ‘The choice is theirs to make.’

In the event, Trump’s overtures were ignored, and he eventually bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites before declaring the mission a success and drawing a line under America’s intervention. ‘May I observe something?’ wrote Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian-American conservative journalist. ‘After all that, the hawks are a lot angrier right now than the restrainers – the faction that was supposed to have lost the insider battle.’ Ahmari is right, of course, but this was always the way it was going to be. Trump has entangled himself in the Middle East repeatedly but has always ensured that his interventions – while dramatic and rambunctious – are limited to short, sharp bursts of military activity. Underlying these actions is a complimentary strategy of using them to prioritise and pursue diplomatic tools in the pursuit of American interests.

For the MAGA isolationists (or ‘restrainers’, as Ahmari calls them), there is relief but also exasperation, revealing the domestic strictures on Trump’s policymaking in the Middle East. Iran was a distraction but, for now, it appears to be over, and his base are keen to use the moment to refocus the president’s attention back on their populist-nationalist agenda. ‘There’s only so much an American president can do when he’s dealing with ancient blood feuds ten thousand miles away,’ wrote Matt Walsh, a prominent right-wing commentator. ‘We need to focus on ourselves and let them handle their own disputes. America first.’