The 2016 Republican primary was at an inflection point on the eve of the CBS News presidential debate in Greenville, South Carolina. Then-candidate Donald Trump had just won New Hampshire decisively. National polling showed him leading the field by 8 points. A victory for Trump in the Palmetto State would make his nomination all-but inevitable.
Trump, a streetwise New Yorker who lobbed insults and went off script at rallies that resembled tent revivals, shattered the GOP’s staid conservative mold. His push for a border wall and mass deportations challenged the party’s embrace of comprehensive immigration reform. His rejection of trade deals and globalization bucked the Republican commitment to free markets. And his scorn for interventionist wars defied the GOP’s neoconservative wing, upending decades of predominance.
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The latter issue played to dramatic effect in the 2016 primaries. Until then, Republican leaders had largely stuck to the script, defending the rationale behind the Iraq War despite souring public opinion. Harsh critique of the war was still considered disrespectful to the sacrifice of the troops.
South Carolina was viewed as less receptive to Iraq War criticism among GOP voters. In 2000, the heavy military state delivered the presidential nomination to George W. Bush by blunting John McCain’s momentum. In 2016, establishment Republicans hoped the Palmetto State would shut down a different insurgent candidate.
That night in Greenville, in a hall filled with anti-Trump partisans, moderator John Dickerson pressed Trump on his claim that George W. Bush “got us into the war with lies.” Unfazed, Trump declared, “The war was a big, fat mistake. We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives. … We should have never been in Iraq. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, and there were none, and they knew there were none.”
The electric moment, witnessed by millions, marked a sea change in Republican foreign policy, cementing Trump’s image as a noninterventionist. Trump’s defiance shook the establishment and rallied GOP voters, elevating the isolationist “America First” wing.
From 2006 to 2023, Republican support for an active U.S. global role dropped from 77% to 47%, driven by “America First” opposition to foreign aid, especially for Ukraine. Prominent isolationists, including media figures Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk and Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and JD Vance (R-OH), both Iraq War veterans, saw their influence rise. Meanwhile, neoconservatives such as Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol sought influence elsewhere.
A Window of Opportunity
A decade after Greenville, Trump’s commitment to noninterventionism fell to an irresistible opportunity that required a reconsideration of his position.
Before his decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities Saturday evening, Trump himself proved willing to use targeted military strikes to obtain limited objectives during his first term — including his destruction of the Islamic States’s territorial caliphate, his ordered killing of Qasem Soleimani, and his bombing of the Houthis earlier this year. Trump has, however, avoided the prolonged foreign entanglements opposed by his base and many of his closest advisers, including Vance.
Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities carries the potential to change this. Though limited in nature, they constitute the most significant military engagement of Trump’s presidency. The move could spark a broader conflict from which the United States could not easily extricate itself — the enduring lesson of the Iraq War is that breaking a nation is easier than rebuilding one.
The destruction of a key strategic and symbolic asset such as the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, for instance, could prompt a retaliatory strike on U.S. bases or on Gulf allies. Also, severely diminishing the perception of Iran’s strength and weakening its already failing economy could potentially catalyze internal chaos. The extent and duration of that chaos, and its unpredictable outcome, could bind the U.S. to the conflict in ways that are difficult to predict.
But the confluence of geopolitical factors that weakened the Iranian regime created a rare window of opportunity for transformative action. Iranian proxies Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis have been pummeled by Israel. Bashar al-Assad’s Iran-friendly regime in Syria has fallen, while Saudi Arabia’s influence continues to rise. Iran’s air defenses are in shambles. Crippling sanctions and daily blackouts have sparked internal unrest. For a president with Trump’s historic ambitions, doing all that is necessary to eliminate the Iranian threat and reshaping the Middle East proved too great a temptation.
The Power to Purchase
Trump’s decision to strike Iran echoes that of a president in our distant past who was presented with a monumental opportunity that required a break with his well-established ideals.
In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte offered Thomas Jefferson‘s U.S. the Louisiana Territory for $15 million, a paltry sum for 828,000 square miles of land. Executing the deal meant doubling the size of the U.S., taking control of the Mississippi River and the Port of New Orleans, acquiring vast natural resources, and eliminating French colonization in North America. The latter aspect of the deal was critical. Napoleon’s control of Louisiana threatened to choke American expansion, while his need for funds as a result of his wars made selling the land necessary. It was a tantalizing offer that could simultaneously weaken a rival power and strengthen the nation.
The problem was that Jefferson believed the federal government was limited to powers explicitly granted by the Constitution — and authority for the president to acquire more territory was not among them.
Jefferson’s strict interpretation of the Constitution, rooted in his devotion to limited government and dread of monarchical power, was well-established. It colored his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and underlay his affinity for the French Revolution.
It also defined his political identity. As leader of the Democratic-Republicans, Jefferson clashed with Alexander Hamilton and John Adams’s Federalist Party over federal overreach, particularly Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts and expansion of the Army and Navy — made possible by revenue collected from expanded federal taxes.
Jefferson’s 1800 presidential campaign against Adams championed limited federal power by appealing to “republican principles” and a return to the “spirit of 1776.” His supporters, meanwhile, derided Adams as a despotic monarchist. The Aurora, a Republican newspaper, claimed Adams’s policies “smack of the palace and the sceptre.” Jefferson’s political persona was inextricably linked to limited federal power, much as Trump’s was to noninterventionism before Saturday.
As a result, Jefferson’s decision to pursue the Louisiana Purchase came with charges of betrayal from allies and hypocrisy from adversaries. Jefferson considered a constitutional amendment to address the issue, but the time required to amend the Constitution jeopardized the deal. So he pulled the trigger, relying on the treaty-making power Article II, Section 2 to acquire territory — a significant expansion of federal power.
In the end, the prospect of overwhelmingly positive consequences overrode Jefferson’s long-held ideological commitments, and he struck what many regard as the greatest real estate deal in history.
The Louisiana Purchase came with its own set of challenges — managing relations with Native tribes, heightened tensions with Spain and Britain, and questions surrounding the resolution of slavery, to name a few. But the potential benefits far outweighed these drawbacks.
History has smiled upon Jefferson’s decision to pursue America’s interests by executing the Louisiana Purchase despite appearances of hypocrisy. The world will assess the fallout of the Iran strike in the coming days and weeks. But for now, it’s clear that Trump pushed his chips while holding a strong hand. Like Jefferson, he may have secured a transformative legacy.