When it comes to the conflict between Israel and Iran, the U.S. government and President Donald Trump most of all, needs to listen to America First conservatives who know that the people of the U.S. do not want our country involved in another regime change war.
In fact, I can’t say it any better than Tucker Carlson, who was on Steve Bannon’s podcast yesterday to urge Trump to let cooler heads prevail. Importantly, Tucker emphasized that this not about being anti-Israel. It’s not anti-Israel at all to want to engage in diplomacy with Iran rather than warfare.
Tucker went on to say that while he loves Trump, he is really worried that if Israel drags the U.S. into its war, Trump’s entire agenda could be derailed. “I actually really love Trump,” says Tucker. “I think he’s a deeply humane, kind person. But I’m really afraid that my country’s gonna be further weakened by this. I think we’re gonna see the end of the American empire.”
Tucker then criticized the neocons and nation builders in the Republican Party who are pushing the U.S. toward war: Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, and others, who do not have the best interests of the MAGA movement and the Trump agenda, let alone the nation, in mind.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials are signaling, behind closed doors, that they are open to more dialogue with the U.S. about nuclear proliferation, if the U.S. does not join Israel’s war effort. That’s according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.
An Arab official told the Journal that “the Iranians know the U.S. is supporting Israel in its defense, and they are sure the U.S. is supporting Israel logistically. But they want guarantees the U.S. won’t join the attacks.”
That’s all we have to do — stay out of this conflict involving two other foreign nations, and engage in diplomacy. It seems like a no brainer. Yet too many people are succumbing to magical thinking about regime change; they believe that if the U.S. helps Israel launch further attacks on Iran, the regime will crumble. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even suggested that Israel might target the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Trump has reportedly nixed that idea so far. Thank goodness.
Look, how many times must we learn this lesson? Overthrowing and killing the bad guys in the Middle East is easy — replacing them with people who aren’t even worse is hard. We learned this in Iraq. We learned it in Libya. Afghanistan was a disaster. Syria is so far so good, although the new leadership was formerly allied with ISIS and has indeed murdered dissidents all over the country. Keep in mind that the U.S. did not get overly involved in the Syrian revolution, except by providing economic pressure in the form of sanctions. If anyone thinks that the U.S. backed assassination of the Iranian Supreme Leader is going to lead to the creation of a pro-Western, secular, liberal democracy — I would ask you to have your head examined.
Unfortunately, that ridiculous notion is believed by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment: The so-called experts in both parties. The people who brought you the Iraq Qar disaster. They are putting tremendous pressure on Trump to fall in line and do what they say, even though they’ve been proven wrong time and time again. We will see if Trump holds the line.
Robbie Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.
