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President Donald Trump faced a fierce backlash from parts of his Maga movement over his decision to launch strikes against Iran, with critics saying he had been manoeuvred into a new Middle East war by Israel.
“An overwhelming majority of the people [in the US] don’t want to get involved in any of this,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, said on his War Room podcast shortly after the strikes.
Even before US B-2 bombers attacked the Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, the prospect of US involvement in the war had exposed deep splits in the pro-Trump camp.
Hawks including Senator Lindsey Graham and the influential radio show host Mark Levin advocated US involvement in Israel’s war on Iran, while Bannon and conservative media personality Tucker Carlson urged Trump to keep the US out of hostilities.
Carlson said there was no justification for attacking Iran, adding there was “zero credible intelligence” to suggest it was “anywhere near” building a nuclear bomb.
Sceptics said that Trump, in teaming up with Israel to attack Iran, would be betraying his pledge to end the US’s “forever wars” and keep the country out of military entanglements in the Middle East — a key pillar of his “America First” agenda.
Any strikes would, they said, also expose thousands of US military personnel across the Middle East to retaliation by Iran and its proxies in the region.
There has also been concern among the president’s supporters that he has been steered into participating in the military operation against Iran by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, after initially relying on diplomacy to try to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme.
Speaking on his podcast, Bannon said Israel had “essentially forced President Trump’s hand” by starting a war with Iran, knowing it did not have the military capability to finish the job and that only American bunker-busting bombs could destroy facilities such as Fordow.
“A lot of people I know that are Israel supporters are going to say — why are we doing the heavy lift here and why are we engaging in combat operations in a war that’s a war of choice?” he asked.
Some right-wing podcasters who have been strongly supportive of Trump were expressing bafflement with his decision to attack Iran on Saturday.
“I felt like it was supposed to be America First . . . and now . . . it just feels like we’re working for Israel,” the influential rightwing podcaster Theo Von said. “I think to a lot of people it’s . . . you just start to feel very disillusioned pretty quickly . . . in our leaders.”
“Donald Trump has now launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran,” said Dave Smith, a stand-up comic who has long been associated with the Maga movement. “Worst of all, he did it on behalf of a foreign government against a country who posed no threat to us.”
But others kept their counsel. Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who earlier this week said “we are sick and tired of foreign wars”, was less combative on Saturday, saying only on X: “Let us all join together and pray for peace.”
Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk said: “With the weight of the world on his shoulders, President Trump acted for the betterment of humanity . . . For the next few hours spare us the armchair quarterbacking and instead trust our commander-in-chief.”
But later on his podcast, he warned of the potential blowback. “How many Americans might get caught in the crosshairs in response?” he said.
Kirk noted that the US air base in Qatar might be a “juicy potential target for Iran”. “I know when you enter situations like this, they can escalate.”
Others sensed a risk that Trump could be dragged into escalating US involvement, possibly by supporting Israeli actions to decapitate the Iranian regime.
“President Trump has clearly signaled, as he has all along, that he opposes a regime change war in Iran,” said Jack Posobiec, the rightwing media personality, in a post on X. “This is about the nuclear programme of Iran which he promised he would end from day one.”
Matthew Boyle, Washington bureau chief of rightwing populist news website Breitbart, said Trump had a lot of explaining to do supporters in his Maga base who would have preferred the US to stay out of the war.
“He’s got to win this movement over and bring them with him, and take proactive steps to do that,” he said. “He’s got to win that trust back from people.”
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