Donald Trump’s approach to military action: a hard punch and a fast exit

US President Donald Trump was so pleased with the results of his decision to strike Iranian nuclear targets that he decided even before he’d left the Situation Room late Saturday that he was done using the US military to help Israel.

He called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that night to tell him it was time for a ceasefire.

“Our US military did what we needed to do,” Mr Trump told Mr Netanyahu, according to a senior White House official, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive conversations in a telephone call with several news outlets on Tuesday.

Mr Netanyahu was not happy, the official said. But he understood that the President wanted to see a sharp turn toward diplomacy, and he ultimately agreed to a ceasefire

The strategy is one Mr Trump has deployed on multiple occasions while seeking to reset America’s place in the world: a hard punch and a fast exit.

The approach embodies seemingly conflicting impulses that inform his view of what it means to put the United States first. While Mr Trump has been a relentless critic of US involvement in prolonged global conflicts, he has also shown an occasional eagerness to flex American military strength.

When Mr Trump saw an opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, he took it and declared victory publicly, even before it was clear that the mission had achieved all of its objectives.

“In a certain and very ironic way, that perfect ‘hit,’ late in the evening, brought everyone together, and the deal was made!!!” Mr Trump said late Monday in a social media post.

The White House on Tuesday echoed Trump’s assertion, crediting Saturday’s bombing with bringing Iran back to the table.

“Iranians wanted peace following that,” a second White House official said. “And now we have peace.”

Precision strikes alone have rarely proved to be effective tools in achieving long-term shifts in global affairs. An initial US intelligence report found that Saturday’s airstrikes set back Iran’s nuclear facilities by months but did not eliminate them, according to two people familiar with the report.

Yet the bombings clearly paved the way for a ceasefire agreement, which Iran and Israel blew past briefly Tuesday afternoon with duelling attacks before agreeing again to an uneasy quiet.

Experts have long debated the United States’ over-reliance on aerial power to avoid risking troop casualties, including during the bombing of Hanoi in the Vietnam War, said Joel Peters, director of Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs.

But even if Saturday’s bombings merely set back, rather than destroying, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, they succeeded in proving Trump’s willingness to use military force to stymie the program. That in turn could suppress Tehran’s desire to rebuild, Mr Peters said.

Moreover, the larger conflict has significantly damaged the country’s military defences, he said.

“Iran is still significantly weakened,” Mr Peters added.

After the strikes, which Trump claimed had “totally obliterated” three Iranian nuclear facilities, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance reengaged with Iran at the president’s direction. Mr Witkoff spoke directly to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the White House official said, and conveyed that he should come back to the negotiating table.

“You saw what we can do. We are capable of much more,” Mr Witkoff told him, according to the official. “We want peace, and you should too.”

Mr Trump has been talking about both attacking Iran and withdrawing from foreign conflicts to prioritise the United States for the last 15 years.

“America’s primary goal with Iran must be to destroy its nuclear ambitions,” he wrote in a 2012 post on Twitter after Israel accused Iran of orchestrating bombings against its diplomats in India and Georgia. “Let me put this as plainly as I know how: Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped by any and all means necessary. Period” #TimeToGetTough.”

A year later, his call for military action was more explicit.

“While everyone is waiting and prepared for us to attack Syria, maybe we should knock the hell out of Iran and their nuclear capabilities?” he wrote in a tweet.

Mr Trump has also accused former presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, along with his 2016 opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of sacrificing thousands of military troops and trillions of dollars over more than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The years-long investment, Mr Trump argued, did not bring peace.

“Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?” Mr Trump told Esquire Magazine in 2002. “C’mon. Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over.”

Mr Trump has taken credit for being the first president in decades who did not start a war.

But during his first term, he did authorise several military actions, including a 2020 strike against Maor. General Qasem Soleimani, a high-level Iranian official whose assassination risked drawing the US into war in the Middle East much as Saturday’s bombing did. Then, as now, Iran retaliated by launching a missile strike at military bases housing American military personnel.

Then, as now, a larger conflagration never materialised.

At the time, Mr Trump quickly took to social media to de-escalate, declaring that “All is well!” and “So far, so good!” as officials assessed casualties and damages. “We have the most powerful and well-equipped military anywhere in the world, by far!”

Tensions cooled, and Iran faded from the headlines.

His administration on Tuesday drew parallels to that pattern of hit, then retreat.

“We have seen this movie play before with Soleimani in 2020, when they retaliated, but it was a very weak response,” the senior White House official said. “We were confident that would be the case in this scenario.”