A number of officials with high-level security clearance, and copious amounts of intel, have warned the president about this. This includes Mr. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard. But for some inexplicable reason, Mr. Trump was unentreatable. A seductive influence has moved him away from his previous, sincerely held opinions. Below are a few he expressed in public, going back a quarter century.

“I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to stop wars.”

“We’re going to end these endless wars.”

“We will turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars. They never ended.”

“I will expel the warmongers from our national security state… and stop the war profiteering.”

“He [his predecessors] sent our blood and treasure to back regime change in Iraq, regime change in Libya, regime change in Syria and every other globalist disaster for half a century.

“We believe that the job of the United States military is not to wage endless regime-change wars around the globe, senseless wars. The job of the United States military is to defend America from attack and invasion here at home.”

“These endless wars keep going and going, people getting killed all over the place, spending billions and billions.”

“There must be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad…We should have never gone into the Middle East. Under my leadership, we will turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars…. Stupid, senseless, endless wars…”

“Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years, with thousands of soldiers, fighting other people’s wars. I want to get out of the Middle East.”

“The US should stay out of Syria.”

“The United States spent $2 trillion in Iraq and thousands of lives. Now we’re bombing Libya and giving aid to rebels. What are we doing?”

“We should never have been there [Iraq].”

Trump concluded his 2024 campaign by saying in his victory speech: “I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to stop wars.”

Observers are concerned that today he is not listening to honest after-action reports, and will keep blindly bombing until the US arsenal is totally expended. All, that is, except the US nuclear missiles. And then what?