The day after Donald Trump ordered the US military to be deployed against Iran, something strange happened: Not a single senior administration official appeared on any of the Sunday talk shows to defend the joint offensive with Israel or explain why Americans should support the campaign. This was all the more astonishing given that Trump – who campaigned against “endless” wars – appeared to struggle to justify the extraordinary decision to authorize dozens of airstrikes on Iran, including the one that wiped out the country’s longtime leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On Monday afternoon it was clear why no one had voluntarily gone in front of the cameras. There is simply no convincing reason why the US had to go to war with Iran now.
That afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio became the first Cabinet minister to shed light on the timing and motive of the attacks. He told reporters: “We knew that Israel was planning an action against Iran. … We knew that would entail an attack on American forces, and we knew that if we don’t act preemptively before they attack, we will suffer more casualties.”
Israel forced America into war
In other words, the United States entered a war with Iran—a war that claimed the lives of more than a hundred innocent schoolchildren and at least six U.S. soldiers in its first days—because Israel gave them no choice.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did little to dispel that impression when he appeared on Sean Hannity Monday night.
“There are people who say you dragged Trump into this,” Hannity told Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister laughed. “This is ridiculous,” he said.
MAGA’s open revolt
The fact that Donald Trump apparently sent US soldiers into a war on Israel’s side on his own initiative is not well received by the president’s base. MAGA is in open revolt against the administration’s decision to attack Iran, and the internet is awash with memes portraying Trump as Netanyahu’s dog — and even more graphic visual metaphors.
The criticism is sharp and far-reaching — coming from mainstream conservatives like Megyn Kelly, from once-stalwart MAGA fighters like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and from one-time second-tier alt-right figures like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, whose support Trump welcomed even as the broader Republican establishment shunned them over accusations of anti-Semitism.
“My personal opinion: No one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t believe these four soldiers died for the United States. I believe they died for Iran or for Israel,” Kelly said on her show Monday. “It’s not our government’s job to take care of Iran or Israel. It’s their job to take care of us. And that definitely feels like Israel’s war to me.”
Greene and Massie raise their voices
They were later joined by former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who raised questions about Trump’s mental state, saying: “We need to have a serious conversation about what the hell is happening to this country right now, who the hell these decisions are being made for and who is making them.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has feuded with Trump in recent months over his refusal to release the Epstein files, reached a similar conclusion, writing on [Israel] us in the [Iran-]into war that has already cost too many American lives and billions of dollars. Before it’s over, the prices of gas, groceries, and just about everything else will rise. The only winners [in den USA] are the shareholders of the defense companies.”
Massie’s post quoted the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, who wrote of Rubio: “He’s telling us point-blank that we’re at war with Iran because of Israel. That’s basically the worst thing he could have said.”
Conservative media doubts the goal
Sean Davis, co-founder of the conservative website The Federalist, asked: “What is the goal – eliminating the Iranian regime, liberating the Iranian people, degrading their nuclear capacity, weakening their conventional weapons capabilities, breaking their regional hegemony, cutting off their oil supplies to China, helping Israel, or what? The absence of any coherent message suggests the absence of any coherent goal.”
Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes, whose influence in right-wing circles has grown in recent months, featured Trump on his livestream. “This is the breaking point for the GOP coalition. You bury the Epstein files. There is no border wall. You failed to deliver on mass deportations. You cut corporate tax rates for the rich and cut Medicaid again, no infrastructure program, no tax cuts for the middle class. And you have to roll back the tariffs and now we’re in a regime change war with Iran? That’s the breaking point. I’m out. I’m done. And I “Get off the Trump train and I’m not voting in 2026, and if Rubio or Vance are on the ticket in any way in 2028, I’m voting for a Democrat.”
Fuentes added: “All these plan trusters, Trump supporters, worshipers, Republicans – say what you want. You’re fucking cucks. You’re voting for a candidate who’s screwing you. They break every promise, lie to your face, betray you, and our lives don’t get any better. How does a regime change war with Iran make us safer? How does that make our lives better?”
Owens and Carlson: Bibi determines foreign policy
Owens had a similar view: “What does he think we’re not stupid? And people online are trying to act like we’re the ones who are betraying Trump because we’re holding him to the promises he made to us when we voted for him and encouraged others to vote for him?”
Owens added: “The reason America wants regime change in Iran is because Bibi Netanyahu is demanding it. … There was no immediate threat to the United States when Trump made that decision to do what Bibi wanted. I want to be clear: That wasn’t Trump’s decision, it was Bibi Netanyahu’s decision, and that’s why he did it. We are well aware that Israel is dictating our foreign policy, and we want that to stop.” Tucker Carlson struck a similar tone Monday, calling it “Israel’s war” and claiming Mossad agents were planning false flag attacks in Gulf states.
Even Blackwater founder Erik Prince — whose mercenaries killed more than a dozen unarmed civilians in the infamous Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad during the Iraq War and who had worked tirelessly to forge ties with Donald Trump — criticized the decision. “Subjecting our foreign policy to Israel’s foreign policy is something I have a real problem with. I’ve said that before. That shouldn’t be the way forward. And the president has chosen to do that. I just wonder who pressured him so much,” Prince said.
Trump denied on Tuesday that Israel was in control. “No,” he told a reporter who asked him directly whether Israel had forced his hand. “I may have forced their hand. My opinion was that these madmen would attack first.”
