When he ran for president, part of Donald Trump's appeal stemmed from his opposition to war, in sharp contrast with much of the rest of the Republican Party. "The war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake," he proclaimed during a 2016 debate. "George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East."
Trump said this while sharing the stage with candidates who had supported the war, including Bush's younger brother. For all his faults—and it was clear even at the time that he was no true peacenik—it was refreshing for a major Republican candidate to acknowledge something that, despite being party heresy, was by then abundantly apparent: Iraq was a mistake, it did destabilize the Middle East, and that failure should inform U.S. foreign policy for generations.
