Stress-Testing Trump's Claims That the World Was Calmer on His Watch - WSJ

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump claims that neither the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel nor Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would have happened on his watch, and that the world was an oasis of calm and stability when he was president. The reality was more complicated. The presumptive Republican nominee told supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month that attacks similar to the one recently launched by Iran against Israel were the product of failures by President Biden—an accusation the presumed GOP presidential nominee has frequently lobbed against him.

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During Trump’s four years in the White House, there was no conflict on par with the Israel-Hamas war or Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Iran, or Iran-backed proxies, did launch attacks on U.S. personnel in the Middle East and against countries across the region while Trump was president, and he was usually hesitant to respond, wary of further attacks. Russia also took aggressive actions against the U.S. and its allies around the world, and the U.S. and North Korea came close to the brink of conflict while Trump was in office. Some contend that Trump-era policies regarding Afghanistan, Russia and the Middle East paved the way for some of President Biden’s overseas challenges.

Throughout his presidency, Trump often appeared more risk-averse than his public bluster might have suggested. He carried out a series of limited strikes in the Middle East, including strikes against Iranian proxies and targets in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. But former senior officials who helped lead Trump’s national-security strategy say his approach was often more nuanced.

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After Trump’s decision in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, tensions in the region escalated. Iran began stepping up its uranium enrichment and threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial global shipping lane, following U.S. withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear agreement. In January 2020, the U.S. targeted and killed Qassem Soleimani, the top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force who was linked to the deaths of hundreds of Americans overseas. Days later, Iran fired retaliatory strikes on a base in Iraq, injuring more than 100 U.S. troops stationed there.

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Trump has also criticized Biden’s handling of the Gaza crisis, saying Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel if he were still president. But one of the grievances Hamas militants cited as impetus for their assault on Oct. 7 was the Trump-era Abraham accords normalizing relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries—a policy Biden has sought to build on, with limited success. Trump also defunded programs that provided aid to the Palestinians, which some say increased unrest and humanitarian problems in Gaza and the West Bank.

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