Publicly denouncing war and liberals was a regular part of Donald Trump’s communication in his 2024 presidential campaign. Yet, as president, Trump has been relying on the responsibility to protect idea associated with liberals he would normally ridicule as a basis for the US engaging in wars abroad.
In October of 2016, the month before Donald Trump won the race to succeed Barack Obama as president, David Stockman wrote about an example of the terrible damage the US following a responsibility to protect standard in foreign policy can yield. In particular, Stockman wrote about Syria being “a lawless, bombed-out, economically decimated failed state today owing to Washington’s heavy-handed intervention at the behest of the War Party’s bloody twin sisters.” Those “twin sisters,” continued Stockman, are “the neocons — led by the contemptible Kagan clan — and the R2P liberal interventionist claque around Hillary Clinton, including UN Ambassador Samantha Powers and National Security Council head Susan Rice.”
Stockman here used the term “R2P” to reference responsibility to protect.
For some more details on what responsibility to protect entails, consider this excerpt from “Humanitarian Intervention: Destroying Nations to Save Them” by Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince from 2013:
What distinguishes the more recent forms of humanitarian intervention is that thanks to the writings of the likes of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice, humanitarian intervention now has a more comprehensive theoretical justification, i.e., the pretexts for military intervention have become more refined, coated with phony concern for “the people.” It was used to justify the military intervention in Libya, and until less than a month ago was the emotional cutting edge for greater military intervention in Syria.
As an elaborate excuse is needed to justify unprovoked aggression – all in the name of the public good – humanitarian intervention serves the purpose well. But at its heart, strike it down to its basics and it [is] little more than liberal racism – i.e., “we” = one neo-colonial power or another = magnanimously no less – are invading a country for its own good because those poor dumb folks don’t have the wherewithal to protect themselves and need our kind assistance to prevent disasters.
As suggested by Stockman, responsibility to protect, or R2P, is a reason for United States government intervention that is commonly associated with liberals or Democrats. But, Trump as president has recently appeared to embrace it publicly as a sufficient basis for the US to attack other countries. Consider, for example, Trump’s comments in the last few months regarding his reasoning for supporting US military attacks in Nigeria and Iran.
In November, Trump indicated in a post at Truth Social that he was directing that the US military plan to go into Nigeria with “’guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists” Trump wrote were killing Christians. There was no mention of any threat to America, to Americans, or even to the often broadly and squishily defined US “national interests.” Instead, the message was people are being harmed so the US should attack to help address the problem.
When I wrote in November regarding Trump’s post, I noted that Trump’s post was followed by comment by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that “killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately” and comment by US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz that US government should be concerned with persecution of Christians spanning “78 countries, 330 million Christians being persecuted around the world.” This one sort of alleged harm thus could open the door to a vast US military intervention across the world.
Come Christmas, the US military attacked in Nigeria, with Trump stating the attack came in response to harm done to Christians in Nigeria. Stated Trump in a December 25 Truth Social post: “I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”
This week, Trump has been promoting the US going to war in another country based entirely upon responsibility to protect reasoning. Trump, in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, stated his encouragement of protesters in Iran to take revolutionary actions and promised that “HELP IS ON THE WAY” for the protesters. He even told them to “[s]ave the names of the killers and abusers” who he wrote “will pay a big price” — apparently due to US action. Here is what Trump wrote:
Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
“MIGA” here is likely a reference to Make Iran Great Again, a phrase used by uber-warmonger Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in a Truth Social post that Trump reposted three days earlier. Graham, in his bellicose post, in addition to declaring “Make Iran Great Again,” praised a comment by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the US “supports the brave people of Iran.” “To the regime leadership: your brutality against the great people of Iran will not go unchallenged,” also threatened Graham in his post.
Earlier, on January 2, Trump had already asserted he was ready to send the US military to attack Iran based just on the conclusion that protesters in Iran were killed. Then, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post:
If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J.TRUMP
Attacking Iran is not a new idea for Trump. The US military did just that in June, upon Trump’s order. That time a primary argument Trump asserted was that he wanted to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That bombing also came to the aid of Israel that had gotten in over its head by attacking Iran over a week earlier and whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had long been urging Trump to take military action against Iran.
The responsibility to protect argument Trump keeps trotting out for a US attack on Iran joins other arguments that he has proffered over time. For example, on December 29, with Netanyahu by his side, Trump threatened to “knock the hell out of” Iran if it tries to “build up again” from damage inflicted earlier in the year by Israel and the US.
Trump likes to ridicule liberals for their ideas that he depicts as kooky, absurd, or dangerous. At the same time, Trump is out touting his adherence to one of the most kooky, absurd, and dangerous ideas associated with liberals — trying to justify the US going to war based on the responsibility to protect argument that it is appropriate for the US to use military force for the sole purpose of stopping or punishing the infliction of harm on people oversees. It is a formula for foreign intervention without restraint. It is also in incompatible with the peace candidate status Trump sought to establish for himself in the 2024 presidential race.
