A key element of President Trump’s election victory in 2016 was his robust rejection of the “forever wars” that the United States has elected to wage in in the postwar era.

In his second term, the president has overseen a hyperkinetic foreign policy. From calling for the annexation of Canada and Greenland, to the extraction of the dictator of Venezuela, Trump has threatened or applied the military might of the United States.

Without congressional authorization and arguably in contravention of international law, the president authorized Operation Epic Fury against Iran. On February 28, 2026, “U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) commenced Operation Epic Fury at the direction of the President of the United States. CENTCOM forces are striking targets to dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that pose an imminent threat.”

There’s no question about the wickedness of the Iranian government. Over the course of nearly half a century, Iran has not only oppressed its own people but has sponsored terror worldwide. What is unclear are our war aims? The has offered a range of post-hoc explanations. Most recently, President Trump has called for “unconditional surrender” of Iran.

It’s an honor to have historian and national security expert Derek Leebaert to help us sort out this unsettled moment. He has studied the repeated disappointments of US interventions in recent decades.

This episode was recorded on March 4, 2026.

About Derek Leebaert

Derek Leebaert is an award-winning author, historian, academic, and technology executive. He’s a partner at effectiveRAI.

In 2020 Leebaert won the Truman Book Award for Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945-57. A New York Times “Best Book,” it was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Review of Books, and the Times (London).

His Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made was a Wall Street Journal “Best Book of 2023” and “recommended reading” from McKinsey. Presidential historian Richard Norton Smith praises it as “having done the near impossible--craft[ing] a fresh and challenging portrait of the man and his inner circle. . . .A book to regard in the same breath as the classics of Sherwood, Schlesinger, and Burns.” The Guardian reviewed it as “masterful.”

In Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan, Leebaert warns that many of the mistakes of US foreign policy in the postwar era result from ignorance of the history and culture of other nations.

Derek Leebaert was a research fellow at Harvard University and managing editor of International Security. He taught in the government and business school departments at Georgetown University.