At the time, I told my questioner just what I thought a Hillary Clinton presidency might mean for America and the world: more saber-rattling, more drone strikes, more military interventions, among other things. Our just-ended election aborted those would-be wars, though Clinton’s legacy can still be seen, among other places, in the rubble of Iraq, the battered remains of Libya, and the faces of South Sudan’s child soldiers. Donald Trump has the opportunity to forge a new path, one that could be marked by bombast instead of bombs. If ever there was a politician with the ability to simply declare victory and go home — regardless of the facts on the ground — it’s him. Why go to war when you can simply say that you did, big league, and you won?
The odds, of course, are against this. The United States has been embroiled in foreign military actions, almost continuously, since its birth and in 64 conflicts, large and small, according to the military, in the last century alone. It’s a country that, since 9/11, has been remarkably content to wage winless, endless wars with little debate or popular outcry. It’s a country in which Barack Obama won election, in large measure, due to dissatisfaction with the prior commander-in-chief’s signature war and then, after winning a Nobel Peace Prize and overseeing the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, reengaged in an updated version of that very same war — bequeathing it now to Donald J. Trump.
“This Trump. He’s a crazy man!” the African aid worker insisted to me that March night. “He says some things and you wonder: Are you going to be president? Really?” It turns out the answer is yes.
“It can’t happen, can it?” That question still echoes in my mind.