Trump second term would mean war with Iran is 'more likely' than peace: report

Donald Trump, if he were to win a second chance at the presidency, would likely be plagued by the looming threat of Iran, according to a news analysis.

Trump's past actions and stated attitudes would reportedly make a second presidency difficult for the former commander-in-chief. That means a vote for Trump could be a vote for war with Iran, according to a report from Huffpost.

"To hear Donald Trump tell it, a vote for him in 2024 is a vote for world peace," HuffPost senior foreign affairs reporter Akbar Shahid Ahmed wrote. "The narrative serves Trump’s goal of seeming like an outsider fighting a flawed establishment and suits his strategy of seeking votes by appealing to Americans’ fears. But it ignores the issue that would likely pose the biggest foreign policy challenge of a second Trump presidency and one Trump has shown little capacity to handle peacefully: Iran."

"Trump twice risked a war with Tehran during his last year in office," the article states. "He first ordered the assassination of Iran’s top general, risking a cycle of tit-for-tat violence that tenuous diplomacy managed to prevent. After losing the 2020 election, he came close to launching another strike and risking a major conflagration, according to Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

The report from HuffPost further states that the same negotiations responsible for past accords may not be doable if Trump is president.

"Trump acknowledges the higher chances of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon and insists he knows how to keep that from happening," it says. "Yet in a second Trump term, the U.S.-Iran diplomacy that was at the heart of the last nuclear deal would be difficult to achieve both because of Tehran’s view of the former reality television star and real estate mogul and also because of the extremely different circumstances from previous periods of negotiations. Meanwhile, Trump’s 2024 agenda would weaken guardrails on his approach to the delicate issue and make it hard to win foreign support that would enable a fresh agreement."