If there is a familiar refrain from the critics of President Donald Trump these days, it’s about his foreign policy excursions overwhelming his administration and preventing him from focusing on the economy and other domestic challenges, which register his approval rating at around 40%. Some of his MAGA loyalists are now questioning their 2024 votes for the America First candidate who criticized past presidents for fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now it’s “America First In,” as he embarks on missions as America’s global police officer. In the case of Iran, he claims he thought Iran was going to attack first. Then he accused Iran of building nuclear weapons that could “soon” hit America, although the Defense Intelligence Agency released a missile threat assessment in May 2025 that said Iran could not develop a long-range missile until 2035 if it chooses to pursue it.

When Trump was asked recently if the war on Iran would be over soon, he replied, “Wrapping up is all in my mind.” And therein lies the problem: Too much of our foreign and domestic policy is wrapped up in the head of a sociopathic, narcissistic president who makes it up as he goes along, with considerable assistance from his Rasputin-like deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. He reassures the media all is going according to plan while Iranian strikes on oil tankers set them ablaze and shut down shipping that supplies goods across the globe. (Illinois farmers may soon learn how that hits them when fertilizer required for spring planting is stranded in the Middle East.)

Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy recently called Trump’s war on Iran an “unjust” war because it was not reacting to “an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran.” To be clear, there is an “existing and objectively verifiable attack” on Ukraine that deserves a stronger reaction from the U.S. and easily fits the cardinal’s definition. Although Ukraine’s European partners have increased their defense budgets and asserted their support, Trump vacillates and plays nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump must know that his war on Iran, the chaos it has created in the Middle East and the disruption of the world order also serve his purpose of distracting the media from reporting on the war in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed — including 15,000 civilians, as confirmed by the United Nations. Lifting the sanctions on Russia as Trump did recently may help oil flow to global markets during his war on Iran, but it also falls in line with Trump’s obeisance to Putin, a gift for Putin by way of another Trump incursion.

Trump’s warmongering in Venezuela and Iran with hints that Cuba may be next sucks all the oxygen out of media reports on Ukraine as all hands on deck turn to the Middle East. What seems gone and long forgotten are two recent U.N. votes when the U.S. voted with Russia, North Korea and Hungary against a U.N. General Assembly resolution that named Russia as the aggressor in its war against Ukraine and proclaimed Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Then the U.S. drafted its own resolution that failed to criticize Russian aggression.

It is not only the diversion of media coverage and commentary that favors Trump’s support of Putin. It’s also on the new transparent battlefields where cyberwarfare, drones and missiles now spell success or failure, not just boots on the ground. There are limits to the stockpiles of these most sophisticated weapons available for Ukraine to defend itself, and concerns mount that Ukraine will soon suffer from reduced supplies of weapons.

Finally, what impact will Trump’s dangerous escapades abroad have on future U.S. engagement in wars such as the one Putin wages on Ukraine? America First can never mean that America abandons our transatlantic allies that are threatened existentially as Ukraine is by Putin.

Some Trump critics question what Putin could possibly have on Trump, the New York real estate developer who back in the day was galivanting around Moscow as a party boy. Why would he collaborate with enemy autocrats and desert his own country in the United Nations?

Whatever it is, it seems to be in the DNA of Trump’s pals as well, such as New York real estate developer Steve Witkoff, the Trump friend-turned-special envoy with zero experience at diplomacy. Witkoff was asked recently if Russia was assisting Iran in identifying targets of the U.S. military in the region. Witkoff replied, “The Russians said that they have not been sharing. … We can take them at their word.” When has the Western world ever been able to take Putin at his word?

If the U.S. attack on Iran teaches us anything, it’s that this war has fiendish repercussions just coming to light. But it suits Trump just fine as he avoids any responsibility for deserting Ukraine as it continues to fight off the war criminal Putin.

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Bob Kustra served two terms as Republican lieutenant governor of Illinois and 10 years as a state legislator. He is now host of “Reader’s Corner” on Boise State Public Radio and a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman.

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