Conservative commentator Bill Kristol suggests President Donald Trump has a “conquistador” complex — which is a complete reversal from how he campaigned in 2024, on “no new wars.”

“If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace,” Trump declared during his 2024 campaign.

“These war hawks, they want to draft your kids to die in wars, and they will never fight themselves,” Trump said, days before the 2024 election.

The night he won, Trump told supporters, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Kristol writes at The Bulwark, “We haven’t heard much talk recently from the president about wars we’re not getting into.”

“Will one consequence of his humiliating failure in Iran be a return to such a stance? Perhaps the difficulties of the last two weeks have diminished Trump’s interest in foreign excursions?” he asks. “Appears not. A taste for foreign adventures seems to have lodged itself in Trump’s brain.”

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He points to Trump just weeks ago saying, “Cuba is ​next by the way.”

Just yesterday, Trump returned his focus to Greenland.

“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Thursday night, Trump appeared to threaten Iran again, declaring that all “U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.”

He concluded: “In the meantime our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK!”

Kristol notes that it is unusual for an American president to “proclaim ‘Conquest’ as his goal. In his June 6, 1944 D-Day prayer, President Roosevelt said that American soldiers ‘fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.'”

But for this president, “the dream of foreign conquest seems to have become a more central part of Trump’s personal sense of grandiosity, not to say megalomania, than it was earlier in his career.”

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Image via Reuters 

During his Thursday morning “executive time,” President Donald Trump posted a rambling, enigmatic message to his Truth Social account, leaving some critics to guess what he was talking about. The post came roughly 36 hours after he announced a ceasefire in his Iran war, and less than 24 hours after he met with the head of NATO.

He wrote:

“None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!!!”

Trump appeared to be blaming Iran, NATO, and perhaps his own White House advisors, but for what was uncertain.

Describing Trump’s Wednesday meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte as “tense,” The New York Times on Thursday reported that Rutte “had traveled to Washington to try to assuage Mr. Trump’s anger that NATO members had refused to participate in the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and help open up the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil and gas shipping route.”

Wednesday evening, after his meeting with Rutte, Trump also took to social media, blasting NATO:

“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,” he wrote. “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!”

After his meeting with the president, Rutte on Wednesday told CNN that Trump “is clearly disappointed with many NATO allies,” but noted that he was “able to point to the fact that the large majority of European nations has been helpful with basing, with logistics, with overflights, with making sure that they live up to the commitments.”

Britain’s The Times reports that “President Trump has issued an ultimatum to European allies, demanding military support in the Strait of Hormuz within days, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported.”

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As President Donald Trump swung back and forth between threatening civilizational destruction of Iran and declaring a ceasefire, where have congressional Republicans been?

“The speaker of the House was tweeting about transgender athletes,” reports The New York Times. “The Republican senator who leads oversight of the Pentagon was promoting Trump-branded investment accounts for children. The chairman of the main foreign affairs panel in the House was posting photos of newborn bald eagles.”

“No better sight than America’s mascot hatching, a powerful reminder of the spirit and strength of our great country,” declared U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL).

Congress, which has been “vested with the power to declare war and regulate trade — remained in recess and largely in the dark,” The Times noted.

Republicans’ “relative silence also helped them avoid wading into what has become a messy intraparty debate over the war, as elements on the right criticize the president for plunging the United States into what could be a prolonged and costly conflict.”

The Trump administration has provided no official briefings to Congress.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “said he supported pursuing diplomacy but emphasized the need for congressional scrutiny of any peace agreement” — and pointed to Vice President JD Vance.

“I look forward to the architects of this proposal, the Vice President and others, coming forward to Congress and explaining how a negotiated deal meets our national security objectives in Iran,” Graham said. In another post, he added, “I prefer diplomacy if it leads to the right outcome regarding the Iranian terrorist regime.”

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) handed off responsibility to the president.

“At this point in time, I’ve got to hope and pray that the commander in chief the American people chose — we put him in charge of this — that he’ll make wise decisions,” he said in an interview.

U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), who had been posting about Trump-branded investment accounts, responded to Trump’s threat to wipe Iran off the map.

“Iran has been the worst actor on the world stage when it comes to state-sponsored terrorism that the world has ever seen,” Wicker said. “I am glad that they are about to be off the scene.”

Image via Reuters