Trump pitches Iran strike reversal to GOP ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’

President Donald Trump said on Saturday his decision to wave off a retaliatory strike on Iran for the downing of an American drone was being celebrated both by allies and critics as a wise move to stave off overextending the US military.

But the on-again, off-again strikes came at a challenging political moment for Trump, as the commander-in-chief kicked off his reelection campaign at a packed rally in Orlando, facing an uphill climb in the polls against most of his Democratic rivals.

The call to turn American warplanes around highlighted the central challenge of the president’s “America First” foreign policy: living up to the 2016 pledge to end US involvement in the Middle East while standing up to American adversaries in the region like Iran.

Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Trump invited the idea that pundits struggled to define him as either a hawk or a dove, floating the image of a president courted by advisers on either side of the foreign policy spectrum who favor using the carrot and the stick.