rss-bridge 2026-03-01T12:00:41+00:00

Trump’s Iran strike tests the Maga vow of ‘no more wars’

News of Ali Khamenei’s killing sparks backlash from Marjorie Taylor Greene and other America First loyalistsDonald Trump had come to Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, with a promise. “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with,” the then US president-elect said in December 2016.Trump has pushed his isolationist message in the decade since, repeatedly assuring his “America first” base that there would be no repeat of the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Continue reading...

Donald Trump looks on after disembarking Air Force One at Palm Beach international airport in Florida, on 27 February 2026. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Analysis

Trump’s Iran strike tests the Maga vow of ‘no more wars’

David Smith in Washington

News of Khamenei’s killing sparks backlash from Marjorie Taylor Greene and other America First loyalists

Donald Trump had come to Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, with a promise. “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with,” the then US president-elect said in December 2016.

Trump has pushed his isolationist message in the decade since, repeatedly assuring his “America first” base that there would be no repeat of the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But the president’s decision to strike Iran with massive force on Saturday – killing supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – quickly became an acid test for his core support, triggering criticism among some high-profile Maga movement figures.

Among the early dissenters was Marjorie Taylor Greene, formerly one of Trump’s fiercest loyalists who broke with him last year and quit Congress over what she said was his lack of focus on domestic issues.

Greene wrote in a lengthy post on the X social media platform: “We said ‘No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!’ We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again.”

She added: “There are 93 million people in Iran, let them liberate themselves. But Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons. Yeah sure. We have been spoon fed that line for decades and Trump told us all that his bombing this past summer completely wiped it all out. It’s always a lie and it’s always America Last. But it feels like the worst betrayal this time because it comes from the very man and the admin who we all believed was different and said no more.”

Reagan Box, among a dozen Republican candidates seeking to replace Greene in Georgia, said she is a Trump supporter but does not back the strikes on Iran. While she views Iran’s leadership as “heinous”, she told the Reuters news agency, “every time we’ve tried to do a regime change, especially in the Middle East, we just destabilize it.”

The discontent was echoed in the rightwing media sphere. The influential host Tucker Carlson described the assault on Iran as “disgusting and evil”, according to Jonathan Karl, an ABC News correspondent.

Blake Neff, who was a producer of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk’s popular podcast, noted that Kirk had opposed regime change in Iran. “Trump/Vance ran on a peace platform, and it was popular,” he wrote on X. “Right now some of my right-leaning friends are messaging me: ‘F*** this.’ ‘This is extremely depressing.’ ‘Never voting in a national election again.’”

Neff added: “If this war is a swift, easy, and decisive victory, most of them will get over it. But if the war is anything else, there will be a lot of anger. The American people were not given a strong explanation of why this was necessary. But success can override bad explanations. So we must pray for success.”

Others were less ambivalent. Millie Weaver, a political commentator, complained on X: “I don’t remember voting to “Free Iran”. I voted to Make America Great Again.”

The Hodge twins, a conservative podcast duo who have generally backed Trump, condemned the strikes in a post to their 3.5 million followers as antithetical to his 2024 campaign. “Freeing the people of Iran is not why I voted for Trump,” the post said.

Breck Worsham, a former Trump supporter and campaign worker known as “The Patriotic Blonde”, posted: “Its official. Jimmy Carter is no longer the worst president in American history. Mission accomplished, @Potus. Another record broken.” Worsham shared several posts suggesting that the war is intended to deflect attention from the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Opinion polls consistently show Americans’ top concern is the rising cost of living. Yet much of Trump’s first 13 months in office has been dominated by foreign policy issues. In January, he urged Iranians to keep protesting and promised “help is on its way”, only to leave them vulnerable for weeks before telling them to “take over your government” even in the absence of a coherent opposition movement.

The dubious logic of such interventions, with their echoes of the Iraq war and the fear that it could lead to US boots on the ground, represent a huge election-year gamble that heightens the risks for Republicans as they try to stay in power in Congress in November.

Jack Posobiec, a rightwing activist, commented: “Last year, Charlie Kirk told us all that younger generation of Americans are far more interested in domestic policy that pursuing international conflicts and we can’t forget that in a midterm year.”

However, JD Vance had told the Washington Post newspaper this week that there is “no chance” that the US could get sucked into a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight.

Other Maga figures rallied to the president’s defense and supported the bombing campaign. Laura Loomer, a close Trump ally, posted on X: “Iran has been attacking the US for over 47 years. And now, the 47th President of the United States is ending their reign of terror.”

The Republican National Committee released a statement supporting the Iran operation, while reaction in Congress largely broke down along party lines, with exceptions such as the libertarian-leaning conservative Republican, Thomas Massie, who posted: “I am opposed to this War. This is not ‘America First.’”

Mike Davis, head of the Article III Project, a pro-Trump legal advocacy group, said the strikes were justified, citing a recent video message in which he said Khamenei warned that Iran could sink US warships. “That video right there is all the justification that the president needs to flatten the supreme leader’s home and take him out,” Davis told former Trump strategist Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast, which is popular with the Maga base.

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