{"id":3302,"date":"2026-03-08T19:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/?p=3302"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:06:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:06:58","slug":"will-trumps-high-risk-iran-strategy-pay-dividends-at-home-if-the-peace-deal-holds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/will-trumps-high-risk-iran-strategy-pay-dividends-at-home-if-the-peace-deal-holds\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Trump\u2019s high-risk Iran strategy pay dividends at home if the peace deal holds?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\n During Donald Trump\u2019s first term, he made clear that he wanted his foreign policy to be as unpredictable as possible, stating<\/a>: \u201cI don\u2019t want them to know what I\u2019m thinking.\u201d <\/p>\n

With the US\u2019s recent attack on Iran, Trump certainly kept everyone in suspense. While US enemies may not have known what Trump was thinking, the problem was neither did US allies nor US legislators<\/a>. Trump apparently did not bother to inform his own vice-president, J.D. Vance<\/a>, when he had made the decision.<\/p>\n

Trump has portrayed this as a strength, that he is the only one capable of getting certain things done in foreign policy because his unpredictability and risk-taking behaviour gives him more leverage. <\/p>\n

But thus far he has had fewer successes than wins with this approach. His dalliance with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Trump\u2019s first term only resulted in the acceleration<\/a> of North Korea\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

His great relationship with Vladimir Putin has so far led to no concessions from Moscow regarding the war in Ukraine, even causing Trump to effectively give up trying to resolve that crisis, at least for now. <\/p>\n\n

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In Trump\u2019s second term his Maga base has been a bit more divided than in his first. On the issue of tariffs, key Republican senators<\/a> begged him to backpedal with concerns that the new tariffs would be catastrophic<\/a> for the US economy \u2013 one of the issues that propelled him to victory. Yet he went ahead with the tariffs anyway, as some members of his base<\/a> were in support.<\/p>\n

With the Middle East crisis, Trump supporters appeared to be mostly against the US getting involved in a foreign conflict, with \u201cno more wars\u201d<\/a> being a common slogan on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

In the lead up to the US strikes, key leaders in the Maga movement criticised the idea of the US getting involved in the conflict. Right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson<\/a> told hawkish Senator Ted Cruz that he should know far more about the regime that the senator wanted to topple. Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon<\/a> and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green were also calling for the US to stay out of the conflict.<\/p>\n

Before the attacks, a YouGov poll showed that 60% <\/a> of Americans did not want the US to get involved in the conflict, which has since increased to 80%<\/a>. However when asked more specifically about support for US strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, as many as 94% of Maga<\/a> Republicans gave their approval.<\/p>\n

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