‘Project Freedom’ marks a classic Trump flip from warmonger to humanitarian

“Project Freedom” has all the trappings of a classic episode of the Trump Show, the reality series that the rest of the world does not just have to watch, but live through and survive. It has a dramatic plot twist, it is bathed in a self-projected beatific light, and the trailer looked far more promising that the reality. Trump spent a long weekend in Florida banging the war drum. Iran had not “paid a big enough price” for its past misdeeds, he wrote in an online post before spending Friday afternoon revving up a cheering crowd at America’s largest retirement community. “You know we’re in a war because I think you would agree we cannot let lunatics have a nuclear weapon. Do you agree?” he asked, and the elderly Maga crowd yelled its assent. Donald Trump speaking to The Villages retirement community in Florida on Friday. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/ By Sunday afternoon, however, when Trump sat down to write on his Truth Social site once more, his mood had whiplashed. The president reverted to Nobel peace prize mode, promising a humanitarian gesture for the ages, freeing the ships and crews marooned in the Gulf by the Iran war. He was prepared to do this not just for the US and the Middle East but on behalf of the “country of Iran” in particular. In this new take on the Gulf impasse, US and Iranian representatives were having “very positive discussions” – a turnaround from Trump’s outright rejection of Tehran’s latest peace proposal just hours before. …