After taking the oath of office for his second term in January, United States President Donald Trump said he would push to “stop all wars” and leave a legacy of a “peacemaker and unifier”.
But six months in, missiles are flying across the Middle East after Israel attacked Iran, risking an all-out regional war that could drag US troops into the conflict.
The Israeli strikes on Iran, which Trump has all but explicitly endorsed, are now testing the president’s promise to be a harbinger of peace.
They are also dividing his base, with many right-wing politicians and commentators stressing that unconditional support for Israel is at odds with the “America First” platform on which Trump was elected.
“There is a very strong sense of betrayal and anger in many parts of the ‘America First’ base because they have truly turned against the idea of the US being involved in or supporting any such wars,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute, a US think tank that promotes diplomacy.
“They have largely turned sceptical of Israel, and they strongly believe that these types of wars are what cause Republican presidencies to become failures — and what causes their broader domestic agenda to be compromised.”
‘Drop Israel’
Several conservatives questioned the Israeli strikes on Friday, warning that the US must not be dragged into a war that does not serve its interests.
Influential conservative commentator Tucker Carlson — seen as a major figure in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement — said the US should not support the “war-hungry government” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America’s backing,” the Tucker Carlson Network morning newsletter read on Friday.
It added that a war with Iran could “fuel the next generation of terrorism” or lead to the killing of thousands of Americans in the name of a foreign agenda.
“It goes without saying that neither of those possibilities would be beneficial for the United States,” the newsletter said. “But there is another option: drop Israel. Let them fight their own wars.”
Republican Senator Rand Paul also cautioned against war with Iran and slammed hawkish neoconservatives in Washington.
“The American people overwhelming[ly] oppose our endless wars, and they voted that way when they voted for Donald Trump in 2024,” Paul wrote in a social media post.
“I urge President Trump to stay the course, keep putting America first, and to not join in any war between other countries.”
Right-wing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also sent a message suggesting that she opposes the strikes. She has previously cautioned Trump against attacking Iran based on Israeli assertions that Tehran is about to acquire a nuclear weapon.
“I’m praying for peace. Peace,” she wrote on X. “That’s my official position.”
While many of Israel’s supporters have cited the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, the government in Tehran has long denied pursuing a nuclear weapon. Trump’s own intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in March that the US “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”.
Charlie Kirk, a key Republican activist and commentator who is a staunch Israel supporter, also voiced scepticism about engaging in a war with Iran.
“I can tell you right now, our MAGA base does not want a war at all whatsoever,” Kirk said on his podcast. “They do not want US involvement. They do not want the United States to be engaged in this.”
Israel’s attacks
Hours before Israel started bombing Iran on Friday — targeting its military bases, nuclear facilities and residential buildings — Trump said that his administration was committed to diplomacy with Tehran.
“ Look, it’s very simple. Not complicated. Iran can not have a nuclear weapon. Other than that, I want them to be successful. We’ll help them be successful,” Trump said at a news conference on Thursday.
A sixth round of denuclearisation talks between US and Iranian officials was set to be held in Oman on Sunday.
Nevertheless, on Friday, Trump told reporters he had known about Israel’s attacks in advance. He did not indicate he had vetoed the bombing campaign, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio did describe Israel’s actions as “unilateral”.
Instead, Trump put the onus for the attacks on Iran, saying its officials should have heeded his calls to reach a deal to dismantle the country’s nuclear programme.
“I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Parsi said that, at the outset, Trump wanted to reach a deal with Iran, but his demands for Tehran to end uranium enrichment led to a deadlock in the talks.
“Instead of pursuing the negotiations in a reasonable way, he adopted the zero enrichment goal, which predictably would lead to an impasse, which predictably the Israelis used to push him towards military strikes and escalation,” he told Al Jazeera.
Parsi added that he believed Trump engaged in deception over the past week by pushing diplomacy while knowing that the Israeli strikes were coming.
“Trump deliberately made statements in favour of diplomacy, in favour of not having Israel attack, leading everyone to think that, if there is an attack, it would happen after the six rounds of talks on Sunday,” he said. “Instead, it happened sooner.”
