Avoiding the Slippery Slope to Endless War

In 2016, Donald Trump grabbed headlines by declaring the war in Iraq "a big fat mistake," accusing George W. Bush of starting a foolish war and wasting billions of dollars. His remarks were shocking to Republican elites, but remarkably popular among voters, for whom the war had long since become a lost cause. For most of his first term, and even the start of his second, President Trump largely avoided the siren call of "forever wars" in the Middle East, negotiating an exit from Afghanistan and keeping campaigns against ISIS, the Houthis, and Iran's nuclear program short and sweet.