The president of the United States, Donald Trump, stated this Tuesday that he would have won the Vietnam War “very quickly” if he had been in charge of the country at that time, and gave as an example the fleeting operation to capture Nicolás Maduro on January 3 in Venezuela.
«If I had been president, I would have won Vietnam very quickly. The same in Iraq. (…) Look at Venezuela. I took it in 45 minutes and it was a very strong military country,” he declared in a telephone interview with CNBC.
Trump made these statements while defending his performance as commander in chief, questioned for his management of the war against Iran, which began on February 28 and has had serious economic repercussions due to the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, key to global oil and gas trade.
The Vietnam War (1955-1975), one of the main conflicts of the Cold War, was recorded in the collective imagination as the greatest military defeat of the United States in the 20th century, despite its overwhelming military superiority.
During his political career, Trump has modified the traditional interventionist doctrine of the Republican Party and has campaigned on the promise of prioritizing domestic policy and avoiding involvement in costly, protracted conflicts abroad, such as the Iraq War (2003-2011).
The offensive in Iran, unpopular according to polls, has been criticized even by sectors of his own movement, MAGA (Make America Great Again), and threatens to put the Republican majority in Congress at risk in the midterm elections next November.
