Christmas Cruise Missiles: Nigeria’s Complex War and America’s Misguided Strike

by Alan Mosley | Dec 30, 2025 | 

A Decidedly Non‑Christmas Gift

On Christmas Day 2025, President Donald Trump declared that the United States had launched a salvo of Tomahawk missiles against the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in northwest Nigeria. In a Truth Social message from his Mar‑a‑Lago club, he boasted that “ISIS terrorist scum” were being bombed for “slaughtering Christians” and that he had directed the “most lethal attack on radical Islamic terror” ever. Trump later told Politico that he had postponed the operation so that it would be executed on December 25 as a “Christmas present.” U.S. Africa Command announced that multiple militant targets were struck and Nigerian officials acknowledged working with Washington, but they also stressed that the operation was aimed at terrorists and “had nothing to do with religion.”

Mainstream coverage emphasized that the situation in Nigeria is far more complicated than the picture painted by Trump. A PBS NewsHour report noted that the attack targeted ISWAP camps in Sokoto state, a region plagued by a mix of jihadist insurgency, criminal banditry and communal violence. Nigerian officials said most victims of this insecurity are Muslims, not Christians. Analysts interviewed by PBS explained that the violence is driven by overlapping factors: jihadist ideology in the northeast, organized banditry in the northwest and farmer‑herder clashes in the Middle Belt. In short, Nigeria’s conflicts cannot be reduced to a simple narrative of Christians under siege.

Nigeria’s conflicts are not a holy war

Trump’s message played to a familiar trope in American politics that persecuted Christians abroad must be rescued by U.S. firepower. This narrative, however, ignores the realities of the Sahel. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) notes that although Boko Haram and its ISWAP offshoot are vicious toward Christians, most of their victims are Muslims because the insurgency takes place largely in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. Attacks on mosques have become more common than attacks on churches since 2015. Violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt largely stems from overlapping land disputes, ethnic tensions and economic grievances, with both Christian and Muslim communities suffering. The European Union’s asylum agency has similarly reported that Boko Haram labels Muslims who oppose its harsh rule as “infidels” and has attacked mosques across the region.

Those dynamics matter because U.S. bombs do not change them. A Brookings Institution study on Boko Haram’s ideology observed that the group derives strength from exclusivism and victimhood; heavy‑handed security crackdowns often fuel that sense of persecution. The authors argued that policymakers tend to view the insurgency solely as a security problem and ignore political and religious dimensions, thereby undermining any chance of a durable solution. Rolling in with cruise missiles may satisfy a domestic audience, but it risks validating militants’ narrative that the West is waging war on Islam and encourages recruitment.

Northwestern Nigeria, where Trump’s strike took place, is plagued more by banditry than jihadism. Small‑arms‑bearing gangs kidnap villagers and raid farms, exploiting the state’s weak policing. The Small Wars Journal and other analysts note that some violence labelled “jihadist” actually stems from farmer‑herder conflicts and criminal networks. Simplistic religious framing not only misdiagnoses the problem but also risks inflaming sectarian tensions. Nigerian officials have repeatedly warned Washington that an overtly sectarian message could incite reprisals against local Christians and expose them to further danger.

Intervention that destabilizes

Many foreign‑policy realists have long argued that military intervention tends to compound rather than solve conflicts. The Cato Institute reviewed the U.S. War on Terror and concluded that fifteen years of intervention, nation‑building and “light footprint” campaigns have destabilized the Middle East while doing little to protect Americans from terrorism. The analysis lists two key sources of failure: an exaggerated assessment of the terrorist threat and a belief in the indispensability of American power. “Military intervention and nation‑building efforts cause more problems than they solve,” the report argues, spawning anti‑American sentiment and creating rather than diminishing the conditions that lead to terrorism. The authors recommend abandoning this strategy in favor of intelligence, law enforcement and empowering regional partners.

Those lessons apply acutely to Nigeria. Jihadist groups in West Africa have thrived partly because state forces have committed abuses while pursuing them. Extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate bombings and mass arrests create grievances that insurgents exploit. When the U.S. provides kinetic support without demanding better governance and accountability, it risks entrenching abusive security practices. Moreover, strikes based on partial intelligence can kill civilians and drive communities into the arms of extremists. Even if U.S. missiles kill some militants, there is little evidence that such decapitation strikes end insurgencies; in Iraq and Afghanistan, drone campaigns often led to leadership turnover and escalation rather than peace.

Trump’s Christmas theatrics

Why then did Trump insist on launching the strike on Christmas Day? According to PBS, he told reporters that he delayed the operation so it would coincide with the holiday and deliver a “message.” The move conjures the 1997 satire Wag the Dog, in which political consultants stage a war to distract from a presidential scandal. Announcing a cruise missile barrage while many Americans were attending church and opening gifts made for dramatic headlines and appealed to evangelical voters. But the theatrics raise questions about motivation.

On the very same day as his Nigeria announcement, he logged onto Truth Social to denounce the ongoing release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s network of abusers as a “Democrat inspired Hoax.” In his post he suggested that prosecutors should release names to embarrass Democrats, downplaying his own long‑recorded ties to Epstein. CBS News noted that Trump has repeatedly tried to portray the Epstein files as a hoax, despite the fact that thousands of documents are public and indictments have been issued. The juxtaposition of blasting ISIS in Nigeria while dismissing attention to sex trafficking as partisan begs the question: was the Christmas strike partly an attempt to redirect media focus from scandals at home?

History of distractions: Operation Infinite Reach

This is not the first time a U.S. president has unleashed cruise missiles amid domestic turmoil. In August 1998, Bill Clinton ordered strikes against suspected al‑Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and the al‑Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan. The British Parliament’s Hansard record recounts that later scientific investigations found no evidence that al‑Shifa was producing chemical weapons. The attack destroyed a facility that produced two‑thirds of Sudan’s medicines and killed an employee, with the Defence Intelligence Agency later admitting it was a serious error. Lord McNair told the House of Lords that the strike was a “disastrous misjudgment” and suggested that the Clinton administration sought to divert media attention from its domestic affairs – the Lewinsky scandal was dominating headlines as Monica Lewinsky testified to a grand jury the same day. The parallel between Clinton’s distraction and Trump’s Christmas strike is hard to miss. When presidents embroiled in scandal turn to foreign targets, critics rightly suspect political calculation.

The al‑Shifa episode also demonstrates the human cost of erroneous intelligence. Sudan’s factory produced vital medicines for malaria and livestock. Its destruction exacerbated health crises and deepened anti‑American sentiment across Africa. Similar mistakes occurred in the 1990s Balkans and the 2003 Iraq war, where interventions were justified with claims that later proved false. In each case, once the missiles landed, Washington paid little attention to the long‑term consequences for ordinary people.

Selective outrage: ignoring attacks on Christians by allies

If defending Christians is the rationale for bombing Nigeria, why has Washington not targeted U.S. allies when they kill Christians? During Israel’s offensive in Gaza in October 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit the compound of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, a sanctuary where hundreds of Palestinian Christians and Muslims were sheltering. PBS NewsHour reported that the Israel Defense Forces said the target was a nearby Hamas command center, but more than a dozen civilians – including women and children – taking refuge in the church compound were killed. A Christian resident told PBS that the church, nearly 1,700 years old, had survived previous wars but now faced what he called a genocide. The United States did not respond with Tomahawk missiles or condemn Israel for killing Christians; instead, it rushed arms and diplomatic cover to its ally. This inconsistency exposes the hollowness of claims that U.S. bombs are about protecting the faithful.

The plight of Palestinian Christians extends beyond Gaza. In July 2025, clerics accused Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank of attacking churches and Christian homes, forcing some families to flee. Christian leaders pleaded for protection but received little support from Western capitals. When outrages are perpetrated by U.S. partners, Washington’s moral clarity evaporates. Bombing Nigeria on Christmas, then, is less about universal principles than about domestic optics and geostrategic positioning.

Towards a principled non‑interventionism

An anti‑war, non‑interventionist perspective does not deny the suffering inflicted by ISWAP and Boko Haram. These groups commit atrocities and should be opposed. But opposition should prioritize diplomacy, development, and support for local governance rather than external bombing campaigns. Nigeria’s complex crises require addressing corruption, strengthening law enforcement, mediating land disputes and improving economic opportunities. U.S. officials could assist by investing in education, providing humanitarian aid and supporting conflict‑resolution programs. Instead, they reached for cruise missiles and a public relations blitz.

Interventionists often respond that doing nothing is immoral. Yet decades of experience show that U.S. military action frequently leaves targeted societies worse off. Afghanistan remains unstable after twenty years of war; Libya descended into chaos after NATO’s 2011 intervention; Yemen’s civil war was intensified by U.S. support for the Saudi‑led coalition. Each case demonstrates that kinetic force cannot fix underlying political problems. Nigerians themselves are better placed to solve Nigeria’s conflicts. External actors should help them build the institutions necessary for peace, not blow up more villages and claim victory.

Trump’s Nigeria strike fits a pattern of presidents using foreign conflicts as props for domestic politics. The operation’s timing, framed as a Christmas gift to Christians, trivialized the human lives at stake. It also distracted from a scandal involving a notorious sex trafficker, the very opposite of moral seriousness. Unlike the West Wing speechwriters who crafted soaring rhetoric about fighting evil, Nigerians will bear the consequences of these bombs. When we recall how Clinton’s 1998 strike decimated a medicine factory and when we see Israeli bombs falling on Christian sanctuaries without consequence, the message is clear: U.S. intervention is more about power and posturing than principle.

A truly moral approach would reject such hypocrisy. It would recognize the complexity of Nigeria’s conflicts and resist the temptation to impose a simplistic Christian‑versus‑Muslim frame. It would confront allies such as Israel when they kill Christians. It would address domestic scandals directly rather than manufacturing distractions abroad. Most of all, it would understand that peace cannot be delivered from the barrel of a gun. For Americans committed to liberty at home and humility abroad, the best Christmas gift would be to restrain our leaders from turning yet another foreign tragedy into a stage for domestic theatrics.

Alan Mosley is a historian, jazz musician, policy researcher for the Tenth Amendment Center, and host of It’s Too Late, “The #1 Late Night Show in America (NOT hosted by a Communist)!” New episodes debut every Wednesday night at 9ET across all major platforms; just search “AlanMosleyTV” or “It’s Too Late with Alan Mosley.”