The Globe and Mail, March 2026
So much for that Nobel Peace Prize. Unless, of course, the following argument – being mobilized by the Trump administration – starts gaining traction: that it is precisely Donald Trump’s two military operations against Iran that will secure the regional and global peace for which the world has yearned. That line of thinking is analogous to the precept Mr. Trump intoned as he sought bank loans for new hotels, resorts and casinos: Just as it takes money to make money, it may take warfare to prevent warfare.
The President, who has never done any military service, has taken pains to portray himself as something of a modern-day peacenik. He opposed George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, portrayed Barack Obama as trigger-happy in his willingness to launch hostilities against Libya and ran for president three times as an anti-war candidate. He abandoned the Mahatma Gandhi persona over the weekend and by Monday was speaking in the argot of Second World War U.S. General George S. Patton, who was known for urging the employment of “the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.”
