Trump's Reckless War Negotiations Induce Late-Night SNS, Bombardment Amplifies Regime Change
Amid ongoing negotiations involving mediating nations over US President Trump's attack on Iran, the threat of regime change through late-night, personal social media announcements of bombings is intensifying.
During his first term, the Trump administration declared a "peace based on strength" policy and pledged to "focus on counterterrorism, not regime change or military intervention." However, during his second term, he has already attempted war against seven countries.
The New York Times editorial stated, "He launched this war without explaining to the American people or the world why he was doing so. He did not involve Congress, which the Constitution grants him sole authority to declare war. Instead, at 2:30 a.m. EST on Saturday, immediately after the bombings began, he posted a video threatening an "imminent threat" from Iran and calling for the overthrow of the government. His logic is questionable, and his late-night video presentation of his arguments is unacceptable."
President Lee Jae-myung, adopting President Trump's "Strength-based Peace" policy and implementing a massive military buildup, made the "successful North Korea Summit" a key policy, promising it at the White House in July of last year. In a commemorative address on July 1st, immediately following Trump's surprise attack on Iran, he stated, "Our government respects the North Korean regime and will not engage in any hostile acts or pursue any absorption-based unification."
He added, "As a 'pacemaker,' we will communicate with the United States and neighboring countries to ensure the prompt resumption of dialogue between North Korea and the United States."
At the conclusion of the Workers' Party Congress, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the "arms buildup" competition system on July 25th, stating, "Our resolve and will to treat South Korea as a staunch hostile state and an eternal enemy are firm and decisive." He added, "Regardless of who South Korea allies with or how much it increases its military spending, the power dynamics on the Korean Peninsula established by nuclear powers will never change."
The North Korean socialist system is threatened by an arms race with South Korea, and its solutions are limited to disarmament measures with the hard-line conservative forces of the US Republican Party. Furthermore, the actual "guarantee of the North Korean system" appears to be unrelated to the Lee Jae-myung administration and is centered on relations with socialist powers such as Russia and China.
The New York Times editorial board diagnosed this as "war escalation," stating, "During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised voters he would end wars, not start them." "Over the past year, he has ordered military strikes on seven countries. His appetite for military intervention only grows stronger with each passing year."
The editorial stated, "A responsible American president could plausibly argue for further action against Iran," but added, "President Trump isn't even attempting this approach. He claims he expects blind trust from the American people and the world. He hasn't earned it. Instead, he treats his allies with contempt. He also repeatedly lies about the consequences of the June attack on Iran."
The editorial stated, "At the heart of this debate is a clear articulation of strategy and a justification for attacking now, despite the improbability of Iran possessing nuclear weapons. This strategy includes seeking congressional approval and a commitment to cooperating with international allies."
The editorial stated, “President Trump’s failure to articulate a clear strategy for this attack has created a shocking level of uncertainty. While the attack succeeded in removing a brutal dictator, what comes next remains unclear. President Trump has offered no explanation for why the world should expect a better ending to this regime change than the early 20th-century versions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars toppled governments, but they have understandably left the American public dissatisfied with the prospect of indefinite military campaigns with uncertain national interests, and have left even the soldiers who served loyally bitter.”
When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump disavowed recent years of military adventurism, declaring “regime change a proven, absolute failure,” and promising in his victory speech that he would “cease the rush to topple foreign regimes.”
The Guardian, December 7, 2016, headlined "Donald Trump: 'We'll Stop the Race to Topple Foreign Regimes'", that President-elect Trump Declares Focus on Destroying Islamic State, Hours After Barack Obama Dismisses 'False Promises' to Make Terrorists Surrender" and with the subheading "Trump Lays Out US Military Policy to Focus on Defeating Islamic State (IS) Militants Instead of Intervening in Foreign Conflicts."
Trump's pledge stated, "We will stop rushing to topple foreign regimes we know nothing about," adding, "Instead, our focus must be on toppling terrorism and destroying ISIS, and we will."
Trump's remarks came hours after Barack Obama delivered what was billed as his final national security address as president.
Then-President Obama's final national security address to troops at MacDill Air Force Base stated, "Rather than making false promises that terrorism can be eradicated by dropping more bombs, deploying more troops, or isolating ourselves from the world, we must take a long-term view of the terrorist threat and pursue a smart, sustainable strategy."
Trump's presidential election speech, in defiance of this, noted that during the campaign, Trump had vowed to "totally bomb" the Islamic State, calling it a "counter-terrorism strategy," and refused to provide specifics, saying that proposing it would reveal the nation's plans to the enemy.
Trump then claimed that terrorists disguised as refugees were flooding the U.S. border and proposed an aggressive policy of banning all Muslim immigration.
Trump introduced his nominee for Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, to a large crowd in Fayetteville on November 8th, the latest stop on his "thank-you" tour crucial to his election victory. The base, near Fort Bragg, has deployed troops to 90 countries worldwide.
In a speech on December 6, 2016, Trump argued that the US military was too fragmented and promised a "strong rebuild," saying he would spend money renovating America's aging roads, bridges, and airports instead of investing in war.
In his speech, in which he pledged to increase military spending through a "strong arms buildup," he promised to seek congressional approval to lift the defense spending cap as part of a "budget cuts" bill to fund the military expansion.
Trump said at the time, "We don't want our troops weakened by fighting where they shouldn't be. We won't be depleted anymore." He added, "We won't forget. We want to strengthen old friendships and find new ones." He added that any country that shares his goals would be considered a partner of the United States.
In his speech, Trump stated, "We will strengthen our military as a preventative measure, not as an act of aggression. In short, we pursue peace through strength." Trump, particularly during the campaign, criticized the Iraq War, which was initiated by former Republican President Bush, who fabricated the "nuclear development," and, unusually for a hard-line conservative Republican, expressed "deep disappointment" with George W. Bush's military intervention in 2003, falsely claiming that he "opposed the intervention at the time," and further accusing Bush of "lying about the existence of weapons of mass destruction."
The Guardian reported on December 7, 2017, that "Trump has long expressed skepticism about US diplomatic intervention in what he calls 'nation-building,'" and that in an October 2015 interview with the Guardian, he criticized the Syrian ruler, saying, "We're nation-building. We can't do it. We have to build our own country. We're nation-building, and we're trying to tell people who have endured centuries of dictators and worse how to run their own country. Assad is bad." Trump told the Guardian about the Syrian president he deported during his second term, saying, "Maybe these people are worse."
In his Fayetteville speech, Trump did not explicitly promise to ban Muslims from entering the United States as president-elect, but instead said he would "halt immigration from places where we cannot process them safely." However, he has intensified his "forced deportations" policy during his second term.
When Trump ran for president in 2024, he boasted that he would "not start new wars" and threatened that if Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won, she would "drag us into a guaranteed Third World War" and send "American sons and daughters" "to fight wars in countries they've never heard of."
In just over a year, Trump has launched and accelerated a war to "overthrow" foreign regimes. The New York Times reported on the 1st, "He is sending Americans into another war in the Middle East," adding, "He who called himself the 'President of Peace' ultimately chose to become the President of War, and he mobilized the full might of the US military with the clear goal of overthrowing the Iranian government."
The Trump administration's "peace based on strength" policy, which relied on military buildup, revealed its desire for "regime change" with the reckless launch of an attack on Iran. President Lee Jae-myung, who proposed a Nobel Peace Prize nomination to Trump for a summit in July of last year, has strengthened his "peace based on strength" policy, formalizing the pressure on the North Korean regime through military buildup and renewing pressure on North Korea to hold summit talks with the US.
The New York Times editorial said, “President Trump is not even attempting this approach (a plausible argument for further action against Iran as a responsible president),” adding, “He says he expects blind trust from the American people and the world, but he has not earned it. A responsible approach must also include a detailed conversation with the American people about the risks.”
The editorial pointed to Trump’s “contempt for allies instead of trust, his persistent lying about the earlier June attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities that he claimed to have ‘destroyed’, and his failure to keep his promises on resolving other crises in Ukraine, Gaza, and Venezuela,” and said, “He has fired senior military leaders who have shown disloyalty to his political whims, and when his appointees have made egregious mistakes—like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sharing high-level details of a military strike against the Iran-backed Houthis in an unsecured group chat—the President has shielded them from accountability, while his administration appears to have violated international law by disguising military aircraft as civilians and shooting two defenseless sailors who survived the initial attack.”
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