Trump abandons anti-war crusade

Once the loudest voice against America's "forever wars," US president Trump is now at the centre of a high-stakes military escalation, one year in the making, and fuelled in part by his own decisions

- REUTERS

A day after blasting the Nobel Committee for ignoring his anti-war legacy, US President Donald Trump ordered "spectacular" airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, shattering his long-crafted image as a peacemaker.

With his unprecedented decision to bomb Iran's nuclear sites, directly joining Israel's air attack on its regional arch foe, US President Donald Trump has done something he had long vowed to avoid - intervene militarily in a major foreign war.

The dramatic US strike, including the targeting of Iran's most heavily fortified nuclear installation deep underground, marks the biggest foreign policy gamble of Trump's two presidencies and one fraught with risks and unknowns.

The US president, who insisted Saturday that Iran must now make peace or face further attacks, could provoke Tehran into retaliating by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil artery, attacking US military bases and allies in the Middle East, stepping up its missile barrage on Israel and activating proxy groups against American and Israeli interests worldwide, analysts said.

Trump is back in the war business. I am not sure anyone in Moscow, Tehran or Beijing ever believed his spiel that he is a peacemaker. It always looked more like a campaign phrase than a strategy

Such moves could escalate into a broader, more protracted conflict than Trump had envisioned, evoking echoes of the "forever wars" that America fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he had derided as "stupid" and promised never to be dragged into.