Nukes or Regime Change? Inconsistent Narrative Plagues a Divided MAGA

Over the past few weeks, Trump’s MAGA base has been sharply divided over the issue of direct US military intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict. And the shifting official narrative by the Trump administration on why the US should consider such an engagement isn’t helping.

Since Trump started picking his cabinet soon after getting elected in November, to his second term as the US President, critics from within the conservative base sensed a pattern – zealous advocacy for Israel and the overuse of the term “antisemitism.” They questioned whether it would be an American First or an Israel First administration. Five months later, it started to look more and more as if the latter was true.

Israel directly attacked Iran a couple of weeks ago and Iran retaliated with less aggressive force than its longtime adversary. Two different, opposing kinds of calls started coming immediately from within the MAGA base – those who wanted Trump to attack Iran and those who wanted the US to stay out of the Israel-Iran conflict.

The first group, labeled warmongers and neocons, includes popular conservative voices like Mark Levin, Laura Loomer, Glenn Beck, and several Fox News anchors and commentators (Levin also has a show at Fox). The group of opposing voices, labeled isolationists, includes Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Col. Douglas Macgregor, Matt Gaetz, Alex Jones, Owen Shroyer, Steve Bannon, and Clayton Morris, etc.

Those opposing a US war against Iran argue that the push for such a war is a page straight out of the Iraq war playbook, which is the globalist deep state dragging America into endless wars to the destruction of world peace and the benefit of the military-industrial complex (MIC); hence calling on Trump to say NO to calls for military attacks on Iran. They advocate diplomacy to bring about and maintain peace.

But the side labeled neocons has consistently pushed on President Trump to take on Iran as they keep accusing Iran of being a threat to Israel and the entire world. This side’s narrative has reflected in the official Trump administration’s narrative – that Iran is building nukes, is close to getting the nukes, and must be attacked preemptively to defuse the threat of nuclear disaster in the region. This rationale to justify the US launching military attacks against Iran was dealt a blow by the evidence and testimonies of those monitoring Iran’s nuclear program.

The most damning of these is the testimony of Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard who told the Congress just a couple months ago that the US intel showed Iran was not working to build a nuclear weapon and that Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei had not authorized the development of nukes. Gabbard’s testimony became the nemesis of the narrative that Iran is making nukes and Trump had to say he doesn’t care what Gabbard said, insisting he knows Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon.

These contradictory claims blew up in the face of the Trump administration and the neocon group ringing the Iran-nukes alarm to justify a military strike against the country. Gabbard quickly tried some damage control by claiming that her testimony showed that Iran was still a threat because it had acquired other advanced weapons and cyber-attack capabilities. But the line of reasoning built on Iran’s nuclear program’s supposed threat failed to regain confidence.

Equally faltering, if not worse, is the parallel narrative of the need for regime change in Iran, something Israel’s current government has repeatedly emphasized. Those supporting American military action against Iran have tried to justify their position by stating that Iran is run by radical Islamists who hate America and want the death of America, in addition to Israel, and that alone is our justification enough to attack Iran.

This line of reasoning also suffered major blows to it from within the Trump administration and from the opponents of US-Iran war. Over the weekend, Vice President J.D. Vance told media that the Trump admin isn’t pursuing a regime change, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth both agreeing. But this didn’t age well, as some hours later, Trump posted on Truth Social that he is open to regime change in Iran.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114729009239087163

The narrative of regime change also faces the critical question of US military’s role in achieving the goal. If there has to be a regime change, it needs to come from within Iran via the ballot; let the Iranian people choose their leadership without foreign intervention, military or otherwise. As Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene reminded in an interview with Steve Bannon, MAGA doesn’t stand for regime change and foreign wars.

As of Monday (June 23), Iran has fired missiles at the US military base in Qatar as retaliation for America’s strike on its alleged nuclear facilities, which a number of sources claim were already empty and closed. President Trump also shared some good news via his Truth Social that he has got Iran and Israel to an agreement of “Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.” The declaration brought instant cheers to the side labeled isolationists, while the neocon side seems to be quiet for now.

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