Posted on 06/17/2025 10:33:12 AM PDT by RandFan
The ideological battle over what “America First” means in the Trump era is intensifying in wake of Israel’s strikes on Iran, splitting the MAGA right and testing its relationships with the president.
On one side, noninterventionist doves insist the Trumpian tagline means the president must avoid U.S. troops, resources or dollars going toward the conflict, for fear of getting dragged into an endless war.
“Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted Sunday on the social platform X.
But on the other end, foreign policy hawks and supporters of Israel are appealing to President Trump’s position that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, and encouraging him to leave all options — including direct military intervention — on the table.
“How is it not AMERICA FIRST to congratulate those who just made sure Islamists who chant ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ and who openly plotted to assassinate President @realDonaldTrump never have an opportunity to have a nuke?” right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer posted on X over the weekend.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Actually Iraq was a great success, until someone decided we had to do nation building. Trump doesnt want to nation build. He wants to get rid of a nuclear threat, one that isnt held by a rationale adversary, but rather is held by maniacs hoping to bring on the 12th Iman.
Is that you, Mr. Bolton?
Israel unilaterally started this and now they expect the US to jump-in with 'le coup de grace' based on their contrived narrative, 'We want to stop Iran from bombing NYC'. Israel threw the first punch and now wants the US to do their dirty work and finish off Iran so Israel can appear to keep their hands clean.
He wasn’t Kreskin when he ran. There are other actors in the world besides Emporer Trump. As much as I don’t like that fact.
Your comment makes no sense. Keep its hands clean when they started it? Maybe you dont grasp that Israel bears no shame for what they have done, what they have patiently tried to avoid for some 30 years. You dont even know what they have asked us to do, if anything. Just a lot of speculation that we are the only ones who can destroy the underground centrifuge facility. Wait a few more days. I wouldnt be surprised if the Israelis mop this up all on their own. But if a dying Iran starts shooting up US shipping, you can bet we are justified to 'jump-in' and help.
You’ve just revealed you have learned nothing from the 2 trillion dollar pack of lies and 3,000 dead young men disaster that was Iraq
A SUCCESS...
WOw
And ditto Viet Nam.
We learn lessons from every conflict. As I stated, nation building was a flawed concept in the ME. Thats where most of those deaths came from. Not from OIF. Like Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the Iraqi military folded like a bad poker hand in days when confronted with our military.
Iraq was a quick decisive military victory. And probably a mistake.
GWB was letting Christian conservatives try to reform Iraq, and he put our tanks in garages and let the troops become targets in the cities.
Poorly handled.
Sadam was a ch3ck on Iran. Reagan played them beautiful against eachother.
Iran says Death to America. Iran has highly enriched uranium. We have open border politicians in this country. Connect the dots. They are pretty simple.
Trump has only talked about targeting Iran's nuclear capability. He even refuses to take out their leader.
What are you scared about?
That program is very close to producing at least a simple but very effective gun type nuclear device.
The reality is that once you have s sufficiently large supply of highly enriched, weapons grade uranium then building a working Uranium bomb is not a particularly difficult task, nor does it take a lot of time to produce one.
Even the UN's inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who are very pro Iran, have warned that Iran has stockpiled a very substantial quantity of highly enriched Uranium that can be converted to weapons grade materials in a matter of weeks.
Iran has been rushing to produce and demonstrate a working nuclear bomb using the North Korean concept that having nuclear weapons makes your regime untouchable and frees you to intimidate your neighbors with the use of these weapons.
Given what we have seen with the massive and completely unprovoked ballistic missile attacks by Iran and Iranian proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis on Israel and the US assets in the Middle East it is obvious that Iran simply cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons for the simple reason that they will almost certainly use them.
Iran's nuclear programs have are 100% driven by the desire to build and deploy nuclear armed ballistic missiles and has no peaceful application.
Iran has long since passed the level of enrichment needed to build a very substantial nuclear power plant network but all Iran;s resources are focused on weapons related nuclear developments and absolutely zero on peaceful applications.
Iran's ballistic missile capability is very impressive and they now have the capability to strike Israel and Europe with their newest generation of ballistic missiles.
If Iran had a simple , basic nuclear that could be mounted onto it's ballistic missile Tel Aviv and many other Israeli population centers would have been incinerated.
The next generation of Iranian ballistic missiles that is reaching operational capability will able to hit the United States.
The Iranian nuclear weapons programs must be shut down and dismantled before they can threaten the rest of the world.
10% of Israeli citizens are also American citizens (dual). Should we protect them?
I grasp what's going on.
Israel screwed Trump with their preemptive first-strike 'defensive' attack.
Israel has now put Trump in a no win situation. If he bring the US into this conflict, Trump betrays his promise to his base about not getting involved in foreign conflicts. If Trump doesn't bring the US into this conflict, the narrative becomes 'Trump is betraying our greatest ally and letting Iran bomb US cities'.
"I wouldnt be surprised if the Israelis mop this up all on their own."
I'm fine with Israel finishing what Israel started so long as the US isn't involved.
The silly part of this is the idea that any ideology can reflexively decide every foreign policy situation as it arises.
That’s why I trust Trump to decide.
OK, let's say for sake of argument that Iran was months away from building a functional nuclear weapon. Do you really believe that they would use this to stage an attack against the US, knowing that A. they would almost certainly be annihilated and B. that with a very meager nuclear arsenal, what few weapons they have would be intercepted/destroyed by US defenses regardless?
Weak nations don't attack powerful ones. Weak nations that do develop nukes or try to do so as a deterrent against being attacked. I'm not saying that a potentially nuclear-armed Iran is a great thing. However, the idea that it would be a mortal, existential threat to the US is absurd. China has many times the nukes that Iran could ever dream of, when's the last time China attacked the US?
If Israel started the fight, let them finish it as best they can. It's not the job of the US to finish the Israeli's fights for them.
I knew FR had reached the point of imbecility on this issue when some clown was posting the other day that George Washington was "naive" because of his isolationism. LMAO.
<>Whatever he decides will have my support.<>
Agree.
Iran is back on its heels. If the Israelis can neutralize a nuclear Iran, great. But one way or the other Iran must be, per Donaldus Magnus, neutralized.
If you think there’s a guarantee that other countries will not use their weapons against us then you are living in a dream world and have absolutely zero understanding of history. You do know that Japan and Germany were pretty thoroughly demolished in World War II which they started.
You also should know that the leadership in Iran is not rational that it is a group of religious fanatics.
Wow yes. I saw that and gasped myself. But I just put it down to silliness
The poster was making out he was a hypocrite or something.
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