Appearing oddly incongruous with the recent bombing of Iran and threats to invade Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard spoke on Trump’s role as a peacemaker at the IISS Manama Dialogue 2025 in Bahrain on Oct. 31. Some of her statements are most welcome, but often appear to contradict what Trump is saying and doing.
She called this a “pivotal time in global history,” at which we must recall “that true security, true stability, and peace cannot be forged in isolation, but in the common collection of peacemakers working towards that common purpose.” Regarding Trump, she said: “As someone who serves under President Trump’s leadership, I have experienced the promise of peace. His vision is about delivering real wins, not just for America, but for our collective cause of peace and prosperity, and doing so through a very principled realism, rooted in shared goals, interests, and values” (emphasis in original).
On regime change: “The old Washington way of thinking is something we hope is in the rear-view mirror and something that has held us back for too long. For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation-building. It was a one-size-fits-all approach of toppling regimes, trying to impose our system of governance on others, intervening in conflicts that were barely understood, and walking away with more enemies than allies. The result: trillions spent, countless lives lost, and in many cases, a creation of greater security threats, the rise of Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS.”
She again credits Trump with this view: “This is what President Trump’s America First policy looks like in action, building peace through diplomacy, with an understanding that there cannot be prosperity without peace. President Trump de-escalated tensions on the Korean peninsula through direct talks. During his first term in office, he opened lines of communication with North Korea that had been frozen for generations. He did what no other president had been willing to do: engage directly to speak about peace. He restored American leadership abroad. He brokered economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, promoting stability and peace in the Balkan region.
