The big Donald Trump foreign policy question heading into this week looked like it was going to be when and if the US was going to launch military strikes against Venezuela. That’s still a live question, but in the meantime, the president has threatened to attack an entirely different country on the other side of the Atlantic, vowing to send troops “guns-a-blazing” into Nigeria if that country’s government fails to prevent the persecution of Christians.

It’s the latest example of how the Nobel Peace Prize aspirant and advocate of “America First” foreign policy is more than willing to use the threat of military force to accomplish his foreign policy goals, and to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries, when doing so aligns with his domestic political priorities.

In this sense, the threat against Nigeria is similar to that against Venezuela, although the latter appears far more likely to actually be carried out. In both cases, the president appears to be contradicting his frequently expressed opposition to military interventionism, but these are interventions linked to the priorities of his political base: in one case, keeping drugs and migrants out of the US. In another, protecting Christians.

As we get deeper into Trump’s second term, it’s becoming increasingly clear that MAGA is not immune from the temptation to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

What is actually happening in Nigeria?

The problem Trump is talking about here is a real one. The hardline Islamist terror group known as Boko Haram and its offshoots have waged a brutal insurgency against the Nigerian state in the northern part of the country since 2009, committing numerous high-profile massacres and kidnappings, including the 2014 Chibok schoolgirl abduction that attracted a global media campaign. This isn’t the only religious conflict going on. Recent years have also seen a wave of clashes and attacks between predominantly Muslim herders and predominantly Christian farming communities in Northwest and Northcentral Nigeria. The Nigerian military has been fighting the insurgency for years, but President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been accused of ignoring the plight of Christians, in particular, and the military campaign has been hampered by widespread corruption and alleged human rights abuses.

In addition, several Nigerian states have some of the world’s most draconian blasphemy laws, which critics say are disproportionately enforced against Christians. Atheists and members of minority Muslim sects........

© Vox