Does the Iran War Put America First?

From New York Times' opinion, I'm Ross Douthett, and this is interesting times.

Today, the United States military continues to carry out large-scale combat operations in Iran.

Today, the United States military continues to carry out large-scale combat operations in Iran.

To eliminate the grave threats posed to America by this terrible terrorist regime.

So, whatever happened to America first?

It doesn't feel like a war with Iran was quite what Donald Trump campaigned on in 2024.

We put America for it.

We're going to end these endless wars, endless wars they never said.

Have you ever seen these wars they go on for 14 years, 20 years?

And my guess this week thinks it's a big betrayal of the voters who put him in the White House.

Kurt Mills is the executive director of the American Conservative, a magazine that champions foreign policy restraint.

He argues that the Iran war isn't just a foreign policy blunder.

It's a move that could shatter Trump's domestic coalition.

Kurt Mills, welcome to interesting times.

Thanks for having me.

So, I'm going to do some stage setting here for anyone in the audience who doesn't follow all of the ins and outs of right wing foreign policy debates.

But you are in charge of the American Conservative magazine, which is a magazine founded by Pat Buchanan among other people in opposition to the looming Iraq war.

And for a long time, the American Conservative was a pretty lonely voice for foreign policy restraint, a kind of anti-war, anti-imperial conservatism.

But throughout the Trump era, it's been seen as much more influential, maybe closer to what Trump himself believes.

But here we are, the US is at war and it is a war.

It's not a, whatever, a large scale combat operation, right, where at war with Iran, we're still backing Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.

We've intervened in Venezuela, we've intervened in Nigeria, there's a long list, right.

So, whatever this looks like, I would not describe it as a dovish or restraint oriented administration.

And however you would describe your faction on the right, can call it anti-war mega, we can call it America first, whatever label you want to use seems to be losing.

So, give me a big picture account of why that's happened, why in the broadest sense, why is the second Trump administration turned out to be much more hawkish than a lot of people expected?

It seems pretty clear to me that the ultimate deciding factor is the president's personality and own determinations.

There are a number of people in this administration, there are real cadres that believe in non-interventionism, they were put into personnel throughout the administration in a much more pronounced way than in term one.

This generation is younger, I think very notably at the cabinet level, but also at the sub cabinet level.

There was every indication that when Trump came in first day of term two, first month of term two, that they really wanted to get the ball rolling on a number of these endeavors.

But they tried before he was even in power. The president's special envoy Steve Wyckoff, if you remember the transition in mid-January 2025 imposed a ceasefire on the Israelis, that was very unpopular among the Israeli right.

Trump opened up negotiations and announced it side by side with Benjamin Netanyahu with Iran in April of 2025.

Vice President Vance led a caustic showdown with Zelensky in February of 2025 indicating the administration was going to take a hard line in getting out of the war.

Even on pet projects of people like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, there was every indication that there were competing factions to try to do diplomacy in Latin America.

This may well just be stuff that is written in history books and not remembered actively, but the opening thrust of Trump term two was extremely in this direction.

And I think it's worth noting. I also think it had been building for years. There was every indication that it was going to look very different.

So so then what so what changed what was the you said it comes down to Trump himself is impatient. So the president is impatient. The president does not have the patience for diplomacy.

I think this is clear. The president does not have the detailed oriented mindset to overwhelm the various factions in his coalition. And the president is ultimately fundamentally an underratedly agreeable personality.

And so a major part of President Trump's boss tweed style of management or people who want to drive the US into war right there are Latin America hawks there are Ron hawks there are even conservative hawks remaining on the hill and in the military industrial complex for Ukraine.

And fundamentally he has not shown the determination and courage to tell them now and I think you've seen this yes on the right, but you've also seen it on the world stage.

He likes Keir Starmer. I know he has sailed him yesterday with Friedrich Merz, but generally speaking, there's been any regional relationship. He likes a manual Macron. Of course he likes fusion paying any likes Vladimir Putin.

There's a status quo dynamic if you can't say no to anybody. And the status quo is America as an escalatory interventionist power.

So that's a status quo embodied by not just forces within his administration, but by NATO, the Western alliance, what gets what gets pejoratively called the foreign policy mob right a lot of this is just an open sort of like I really don't people are intimidated by foreign policy. I don't think it's actually that complex.

Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany flew to DC immediately when the Iran war started because he sniffed I think correctly a grand opportunity for Europe here or the European international such as say, which is support Trump on Iran, lump it.

I don't think they would have chosen this, but they don't really care, right? I mean the Europeans have been you know contract 10 years ago when they were all in on the Iran diplomacy.

They've been very frosty throughout this process. They don't care about the Iranians easy to dump them and try to get Trump back in all in on NATO and Ukraine. And he said in the first 20 seconds of his response in his meeting of Trump, he said, yep, we support the end of this regime, but I'm really here to talk about Ukraine.

How much do you think Trump likes being a hawk though to right? I mean, yes, so it's impatience with diplomacy, it's agreeableness, but you know when I look back at his first term.

It was a first term that had in a way a kind of establishment Republican foreign policy in other ways he very conspicuously resisted figures like John Bolton arguing for escalation against Iran.

But there were various moments, right? The assassination of General Salimani, most notably where it seemed like Trump took real pleasure in using the US military arsenal and you know not being the guy who put boots on the ground and occupied countries, but in being a dynamic actor on the world stage.

And that when I look at sort of the pattern from Venezuela to Iran, that's sort of what I listed to the impatience though. I mean, like it's, you know, there's disputes, there's negotiations, it's complex, it's hard.

He feels like he's getting run over by foreign actors potentially, you know, he said it yesterday, Israel didn't make the decision of anything. I forced their hand. He's very competitive and chalkish and, you know, macho about that, so to speak.

But I think you're right that he's attracted fundamentally to the glamour of these strikes. So there is this element, damn, but fundamentally until perhaps this month or until February 28th when we launch the the war of the run.

Trump has shown a pretty clear hesitancy to get involved in these grand ways, a lot of the neocons, a lot of the 2000s.

So what is the alternative to the kind of internationalist and interventionist consensus that you're arguing that he sort of accepted?

What is the right wing foreign policy, the conservative foreign policy that you were hoping for just in broad strokes?

I mean, look, I think it's important. So, you know, our magazine was founded by Buchanan and as you mentioned, and Buchanan in a lot of ways was the Tucker Carlson of his age and also ran for president, which, you know,

may be forthcoming one day from Mr. Carlson, but Trump and Buchanan had a very bad relationship because they both sort of comically competed over the 2000 reform party nomination and Trump said horrible things about Pat.

And I'm only aware of two people that Trump has ever personally apologized to.

One is wife Melania Trump after the leak of excess Hollywood and second pat.

So, even if you think Trump believes in nothing and is a nihilist, right, don't.

If you believe that, he is aware of the ideology that he trafficked in in the 2016 primary and has continued to the last 10 years.

And that is fundamentally a conservative anti-globalism. It is skeptical of our massive empire overseas that it serves the Americans, that it serves the national interest.

It is skeptical of unending immigration and it is skeptical of, quote, free trade.

That is what Trump ran on. That is why the conservative establishment lost its mind when he first rose to power.

And that is when his back has been against the wall, what he has really reached for.

I mean, remember someone called Ron DeSantis was one favorite to beat him in the 2024 primary and he leaned in hard to the anti-war messaging,

leaning hard to the trade hawkish messaging, hard on the immigration.

He reached for it again and again and again. And at the same time, of course, a rising young senator called JD Vance endorsed President Trump early in that primary.

When that was not vulgar, that was not considered the safe play.

And then he backed a withdrawal and skepticism of Ukraine.

When that was not at all considered the conventional wisdom even on the right or at least within the establishment right.

He made those bets and that was an early alliance between the two of them.

And I think it tells you that this ideology was always twinned and linked.

Do you think of this ideology as isolationist?

No.

But I mean, I think what is isolationist?

Well, that is part of my question, right.

It seems like a catch all slur, right?

I mean, I mean, very few...

Well, there is a thread that runs through republic before it calls themselves as an isolationist.

No one ever... No one knows.

Well, people actually called themselves Neocons, right?

Like, so that was like a real movement. They called it the Advanced Policies that helped ruin the country.

But like, that was an actual ideology.

I think...

Although by the time...

By the time it became controversial, right?

When they started messing this up.

In the early 2000s, you had lots of Neoconservatives who would say, well, what is a Neoconservative?

Anyway, right? It was...

I guess what I'm getting at is this.

There's a strand of Republican foreign policy that is extremely hawkish, aggressive and interventionist.

And sometimes for the sake of democracy, sometimes just on general...

Is it defective?

On general, right?

You see it. It's on autopilot on Capitol Hill.

I mean, it's...

The older generation is just marinated.

It's this central nervous system.

But there is also a thread, a strong thread that runs through actual Republican presidents from Dwight Eisenhower,

through Richard Nixon, into some extent Ronald Reagan, that is internationalist,

but skeptical of military intervention.

But then there's also a fuller kind of anti-imperial anti-war right that says,

no, we need to sort of dismantle bases, bring troops home, and so on.

And I'm curious where in that divide you sit?

Like, do you think that Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan offer a valuable tradition

or do you think they were too imperial themselves?

First, the magazine represents a range, but I'm happy to answer for myself.

For yourself.

Okay.

And it's also relevant to advance, to Trump, to these figures.

Like, what are they trying to build?

Are they trying to sort of change the way the American Empire works?

Or are they trying to retreat and dismantle it?

For myself, I am far more to the latter.

I think basically the critics of where America went, particularly post-World War II,

lost the battle, but they were right.

And I don't think this is actually an ancient battle because the Empire is still going on.

And America is increasingly stressed thin in my assessment.

And I think their arguments are still alive and well and relevant going into the 21st century.

So I prefer Nixon's foreign policy to Reagan's.

I prefer Eisenhower's foreign policy to the John Birch society.

But I prefer Robert Taft to Eisenhower.

That's where I come from.

And Reagan, I think, is similar enough to Obama on the left,

which is it's a sort of deity figure where it just doesn't really behoove one to mess with him.

But I think we drew the wrong lessons from the Reagan years.

And I think Reagan is fundamentally an overrated conservative figure and overrated president.

Okay.

And potentially, in many ways, damaging one.

When you talk about then, the shift that you saw happening on the younger right,

in appointees to the Trump administration,

do you think that a lot of those people agreed with you,

or do you think that they saw themselves more as saying,

we're still internationalists, but we're in the Nixon school.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the people who are in the government are probably functionally closer to the Nixon Eisenhower school,

which I still think would be a vast improvement over the default mode of where we have been in the 92,000 since 2010s.

Okay.

Do you think there's actual public support for any kind of sort of anti-imperialist anti-war term?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

I think foreign policy is complex.

I think it needs leadership.

I think it would need a president to explain why we are doing this to the American people.

But I think the people who lose their minds when the president pursues a new type of foreign policy,

whether this be Donald Trump or even Barack Obama, it is a elite driven game.

It is a DC and New York thing.

That is who's actually opposing it most vociferously.

It is not protests in the streets to keep our bases in buck rain.

It is not protests in the streets to make sure that we bore out bag Nicholas Maduro.

It is a DC, New York intelligentsia thing fundamentally.

Okay. Let me make a counter-argument and see what you think.

If you look at polling on the Iran War so far, and again, we're four or five days in,

and obviously it can change dramatically.

But right now, initially, overwhelming numbers of Republican voters support the war.

It's not popular nationally, but then Donald Trump himself is not popular nationally.

Within the Republican coalition, there's plenty of support for the war in polls.

It doesn't seem just elite driven.

I think if you looked at polls for the Venezuelan operation, you would probably see something similar.

And then over time in polling, I think if you do it on the basis of philosophy, right,

you find a lot of sort of default hawkishness among Republican conservative and right-wing voters.

And there's people who look at the kind of anti-war right or the war skeptical right that you represent,

but that's also associated with really prominent figures like Tucker Carlson, who you already mentioned.

Steve Bannon, all the way now through figures like Megan Kelly and others.

And people say, well, that's actually the elite driven phenomenon.

That's a group of people who found a way this is an attention economy to monetize a lot of people

who are really intensely focused on foreign policy or sometimes really hostile to Israel.

Talk more about Israel in a minute, right?

But that ultimately, Bannon, Carlson, others, they speak for a really hyper-engaged 10% of the Republican coalition.

But most people are just hawks on the right.

And if you say we're going to go to war and kick some ass in the Middle East,

yes, if it goes really badly, people will turn against it.

But there isn't like a philosophical support for restraint.

What do you make of that argument?

Most voters are deferential to their party and their politicians.

So, I mean, I just think the counterfactual, seizure counterfactual needs to be interrogated.

What if President Trump had signed an Iran deal?

I think overwhelming numbers of Republicans would have supported that.

What if President Trump had opened up business dealings with Nicholas Maduro,

like he's doing right now with Delci Rodriguez, or trying to?

I think that would have been uncontroversial in the population.

What if President Trump had pulled out of Ukraine and Ukraine had been collapsed

and there was an enduring deal where an armistice frees the battle lines?

I think that would have been very popular on the right as well.

So, you see a level of partisanship in this country that is extreme.

You see a level of trust on the right in President Trump, which is notable.

But I'm not sure entirely unique.

I think the Democratic standard bearer Biden was a weird president.

We can agree on that.

We stipulated that.

I think Barack Obama, if he was President today, would have similar dynamics on the left.

I think that was frustrating for liberals that were...

Meaning that the left was notionally anti-war, but when Obama...

There were a lot of left things.

I mean, Obama and Trump have similarities, right?

The phenomenon's have similarities.

There was a lot of left-wing intellectual on we with Obama in the mid-2010s.

I'm sure you recall.

And it didn't really show up in the polls, okay?

So, I think Trump is a big deal.

I think these parties are big deals.

I think presidents are big deals.

But I don't really see that as evidence as for hawkishness, actually.

I see that as evidence for trusting the president.

Or trusting who leads the party.

Or trusting your party.

And I will say this.

I'm not a big fan of Bush, certainly.

And but also of Obama, who I think were both failed presidents,

they both tried to marshal support in fairly traditional ways,

which is, this is what I believe.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to spend political capital on it.

Rock Bush did that.

Obama did it for mediocre health care reform.

Wouldn't you at least agree, though, that there is a strong generational division here?

Where older conservatives and Republicans...

Yes.

And again, I think you can see this in opinion polls.

Have a stronger hawkish default.

For sure.

Going back in part to some of the veneration of Ronald Reagan,

you talked about.

But again, I think just connected in a kind of profound way to how conservatives,

older conservatives think about their country, right?

That we were the country that won the Cold War.

And if you're a patriotic American, you should expect us to be able to do good things abroad.

But that seems like it's still a powerful force in public opinion

that can't be just reduced to Trump, says it, therefore, people go along.

But I think the story ultimately is an elite one,

because I'm still going to focus on the counterfactual.

Let's say Trump did a deal with Vladimir Putin.

Let's say Trump did a deal with the Iranians.

He said, I solved Biden's war.

I did a better Iran deal than Obama.

Yeah.

There might have been some people in the country, some right-wing radio shows,

like, you know, the Mullahs are still up the stuff.

We've got to do this or do that.

But I don't think there would be revolt from the older Kleentel of the party

if Trump had chosen diplomacy.

Versus Trump is choosing war, and there is revolt.

Is there revolt?

I think you're going to see.

I think it's going to be pretty bad.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, it stipulates how long this war goes.

Right.

Trump may still off ramp. Trump should off ramp.

But like, I'm arguing, systemically,

that it actually would have been politically more savvy for him to do the diplomacy.

And the only real explanatory variable in my view is the elite story.

That's who was losing their mind at diplomacy.

What about the explanatory variable of non-American actors?

I think that's huge too.

Right.

Maybe diplomatic.

Well, but not, so I don't mean our allies.

We'll talk about our allies in a moment.

I mean, our adversaries, right?

Okay.

So when I look at what's happened with Russia and Ukraine,

right, it seems to me that the administration made a big diplomatic push.

Right.

They twisted the Ukrainian government's arm, as you mentioned,

you know, in the famous office meeting and elsewhere,

to get them to be more open to a peace deal.

And for various reasons, Vladimir Putin has decided that it's in his interests

to let the war go on.

And that has left the White House still, you know,

they're still negotiating.

I mean, I think they could have come to a deal.

That would have been attractive enough for Putin to not continue the war.

But that's life.

I mean, like you have to offer a deal that makes it more attractive than the status quo.

Right.

But to take the extreme example, if Trump made a deal with Putin

and six weeks later, the Russian army took Kiev and occupied, you know, two-thirds of Ukraine,

the public would turn against that, don't you think?

I think the driving force on why they were turning against it

would be hysteria driven from the media and by foreign policy elites.

So I'll stick to that.

And like, look, I don't think it was really an offer, though.

I mean, we debate Ukraine all day.

But I think let's just narrow the zone of what was actually discussed.

Like, there wasn't discussion of giving them Kiev.

There was discussions of giving them these four oblasts.

There was discussions of security.

There are discussions of security guarantees.

These are the things that are actually being talked about in all these various negotiations.

If Trump did, let's say, the 28-point plan, which critics say is a Russian plan from 2025,

late 2025, I think if that was initiated, I think that the Ukrainians and the Europeans

would complain and liberals in the United States would complain,

but that Ukraine would not collapse, that there would be a deal,

and that would solve the conflict for the short to medium term.

Okay.

And I think the public would not revolt.

Right.

I guess I just...

I think the Afghanistan scenario is what you raised, basically.

Which is, if the administration had incompetently allowed Ukraine to collapse,

Allah Afghanistan.

Yes.

I do think Trump would have been blamed, but I also think the big story there is media

and foreign policy elites hammering that issue and making it, you know,

everything on the airwaves.

That was the story.

There was a fucking story in Afghanistan.

I guess this is a point where we somewhat disagree in the sense that

I supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I wrote columns in favor of it.

I defended Biden at the time against his critics at the same time,

at the same time, observing the dynamics of that,

how it affected perceptions of the Biden presidency,

and obviously that reflected the way it was handled as well as the policy itself.

It just gave me a sense that there are limits to how anti-imperial

and withdrawal oriented and American president can be,

because a lot of Americans are just bought in,

and sometimes I think for good reason, sometimes for bad reasons,

to are a sort of broadly ambitious role in the world.

And certainly that things that appear as national humiliations,

it doesn't take Fox News whipping them up for that to...

I think the attitude has also...

I think if Abigade hadn't happened,

I think if the images in the airport had been less chaotic,

I think that would have gone a long way.

So let's talk about, as you say,

let's stipulate that disagreement,

and talk more about what you see as the other actors shaping U.S. foreign policy.

So you argue that restrained oriented anti-imperial foreign policy

could be popular with the right leaders.

We've both been writing about these issues for a long time.

It has not found the right leaders,

even in the form of Donald Trump,

you know, a partial Buchananite.

So what is the obstacle?

What is the core obstacle to elites embracing this kind of foreign policy?

Those are kind of different questions.

Yes.

Right.

I mean, the fundamental obstacle is the President

who believes in it advances it and goes for it.

I mean, I would say the same thing,

we went into ancient history,

the early 20th century.

World War II was not popular getting into it before it was,

and FDR,

cleverly martial public support,

and world events to get us into that war.

And now that's remembered as this sterling success of American power.

But it wasn't popular.

It was extremely unpopular actually in the late 30s,

and he basically had to pledge to not get us into war

when he ran for re-election in 1940.

And so I think that the idea that Americans have extremely strong convictions

on any of this stuff is not true.

But I also think that is an argument against their extremely strong convictions

for hawkishness.

And you mentioned the ban in Carlson, Kelly,

right, whatever you want to call it.

And, you know, because I see this line of critique.

But I also think it's very notable that the highest information members of the party

and the most engaged voters,

because I think you picked up on something smart.

Carlson, I've known a while,

and I think he would be doing this regardless.

Ban and pretty much the same.

But if there wasn't a market for what they were saying,

they wouldn't be doing this probably, you know, 10 years ago.

It was always told on like television that foreign policy,

you know, it didn't track.

They could barely get me on TV.

They could barely get people on TV to talk about it.

You know, even when Carlson had me on,

it was like, you know, it was really just kind of almost a favor.

That's not the way it is anymore.

People are getting matter and matter and more engaged on this subject organically.

I would say that the way that they're getting matter and more engaged

centers around having one very specific villain, right?

Like a primary focus of Carlson, especially,

but others as well, right, is Israeli policy,

Israeli influence on the United States.

It's true.

It's true.

Okay, so it's just true.

It's just true. Good.

All right, so what tell me about Israeli influence on U.S. foreign policy?

Israel's foundation was always twinned with the United States.

I mean, this happened in the 1948 election.

Truman told the scales and helped, you know,

it helped him win the election in 1948.

But fundamentally, since the 90s,

since the assassination of its Okrabin,

Israeli politics has gone in a different direction,

it has been highly twinned with particularly center-right intellectuals

and elites in the United States with a certain perspective.

And it is a perspective that says that Israel can only be secure

by thrashing everybody in the neighborhood

and breaking them into bits until they're weak.

It is a siege mentality.

It is a garrison state.

And of course, it is very linked to the U.S.

where, you know, I believe the numbers are 45% of Jews live in Israel,

45% of Jews live in the United States, 10% live elsewhere,

could be stipulated, roughly correct.

And of course, when the other half of the world's Jewish population is here

and is a highly emotional issue,

there is an attempt to say any criticism of Israel

is ifso facto anti-Semitic.

I think it is, well, number one,

it is the kind of argument that the right is supposed to be against,

which is woke political correctness.

It's also just fundamentally untrue

and I think it's a silly and doling thought technology.

Okay, but five years ago, right,

I would say it was fair to say that that kind of critique

had a fair amount of purchase in American politics

and people, the critique that says

if you criticize Israel too strongly or anti-Semitic.

I don't think it has any substantial purchase right now.

I think the Democratic political coalition has been fractured repeatedly, right,

in the last few years by debates that are profoundly about Israel

and Israeli policy.

And as we were just saying,

some of the most influential voices on the right

in terms of sort of interest and engagement

are intensely critical of Israel.

So it seems to me that like one,

that taboo is gone to a large degree.

If it's gone, then let's actually be substantive.

What is, it can't just be that...

I think you're brushing aside the fear

that Israel still engenders, especially among the establishment.

And you know this.

You know that people feel that their careers will be destroyed

if they're at all critical of Israel.

And that is still a controlling mechanism.

People wear.

People in media and politics.

People in media and politics.

People in media and politics and to an extent corporate America.

But since we're talking about foreign policy.

You know it's true.

Just focus on foreign policy.

Is that then an actual driver of U.S. policy management?

I'm sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you would say that a big reason

that a lot of Republican elites

take a much more hawkish line

in the Middle East towards Iran especially.

Then you would favor,

or then you think most of their voters would favor,

is not because they're sincere around hawks,

but because they're afraid of having their careers destroyed.

I think it's a mix.

I think particularly with older,

as we mentioned this, this age,

the variable is huge.

I think older people are more inclined to actually believe it.

And then additionally, I think the clear separation

between the interests of the United States

and Israel wasn't as obvious in generations past.

I think there was a view,

especially in the Bush administration,

that the world was fukiyamist.

And so yes, this was the Israeli position.

But if we knock over all these strong Muslim states,

Jeffersonian democracy will actually blossom.

And like, look, I understand you can say

that different elites in the Bush administration fundamentally

said this, or disagreed on this,

or Bolton wanted to go in for this reason,

and it's different than Paul Wolfowitz, right?

Okay, fine.

But fundamentally, the marinade

was the only acceptable style of government

and organization in society is Western liberal democracy.

And other societies that organize themselves

in a separate form are fundamentally illegitimate.

And I think, because Israel stylized itself

as a quote Western liberal democracy,

I'm not sure it's Western liberal,

or a democracy at this point,

they are naturally able to latch on to that cast of mind.

That cast of mind is discredited among younger people

because this is a heavily indebted society

and Americans don't believe in the future broadly speaking anymore.

But for older Americans,

it is a more attractive mode of argument.

But do you think, see,

I guess I just don't think that's where

the pro-Aran war right is right now.

I agree that that was a big part of the story

of where the right was in the Bush era,

not universally, but a sense that...

I'm not so sure we're out of the Bush era.

To me, I look at the Trump era,

and I look at not so much

even the people who always supported war with Iran,

like Lindsey Graham, right.

But people who have sort of oscillated back and forth

between being anti-war, pro-war,

who are shaped, I think, by loyalty to Trump

in the ways you describe.

I think for a lot of those people,

the story they tell themselves now,

is we don't have any fond illusions about democracy

and the end of history.

We think the world is a tough place.

We think there's a bunch of powers

Russia, China, Iran, most notably

that are hostile to American interests.

We think there's a set of powers in the Middle East

that are friendly to American interests,

including Israel, also including Saudi Arabia,

which has also played a substantial role,

I think, in pushing for a more hawkish foreign policy

from Trump in a way that gets less attention

from Tucker, Bannon, people like that.

Well, it was like...

No one is out there telling a podcast host,

you can't criticize Saudi Arabia, right, in the American media.

Right, right.

And yet, there's much more criticism of Israel

in the American media than Saudi Arabia.

Yeah, but Israel's much more mesh than in US society

than Saudi Arabia is.

But Israel more and meshed in the decision-making patterns

of US foreign policies than Saudi Arabia

over the last 25 to 50 years.

I feel like there's a fundamental underestimation

of the place of Saudi Arabia

from the anti-war right.

I think there's a bunch of Americans

who support working with Arab states

and Israel to fight Iran

for what they think of as tough-minded,

realist reasons, not just gossips.

Americans release.

I think Americans who like Trump

and currently say they support this war.

So, yeah, he advances...

Yeah, he advances...

That he has picked aside pretty clearly at this moment.

But he may flip again.

He may flip again.

Well, no.

Yeah, no.

I want to end by talking about the future.

It might be likely, yeah.

But I mean, seriously, I mean, like, I mean,

the guy flips constantly.

Oh, yeah.

No, no.

He could absolutely flip again.

But even in terms of foreign policy elites,

when I look around the Republican Party,

it just seems to me that there's, yeah,

there's a lot of people who are like Israel's tough,

you know, Saudis are allies.

We're weakening an enemy and strengthening an ally.

I think this is a supine ideology.

And I think it has gotten...

The essential center structure is this.

You can discard the things that are unpopular.

So the 2000s...

Oh, the naive democracy building, right?

Oh, you know, it's enough on Iraq.

We're not going to do that again, right?

The essential lesson of the Iraq war is, don't evade Iraq, right?

But everything else that has power

is really influenced on the United States,

the large military, conservative institutions

that are still bought in on this.

You keep that,

and you just cook up something new,

slightly different,

and sell it as fundamentally a rejection of the 2000s.

It's not a rejection of the 2000s.

This is why the administration is so vulnerable

to the criticism that this is so similar to Iraq,

because it is so similar to Iraq.

I don't think it is a full rejection of the 2000s,

but I think the people who are supportive of the war...

Well, again, have people or elites,

or members of the party...

Including elites.

Well, I think it's very different.

I mean, look, I think George W. Bush,

who was a worst president,

to this point anyways,

then Donald Trump, he's the worst president

by far in American history, in my opinion.

He lost two wars,

and he crashed the economy,

and when he left in January of 2009,

22% low 20s of American support him.

What does that tell you?

Half a Republican supported him,

even as he was leaving the White House.

I think that matters.

I think that will fundamentally be true

no matter what Trump does,

but I think it's only so interesting.

Right.

Now, I'm just trying to get it,

like, what are the actual conduits of forces

that are shaping foreign policy right now?

And it just seems like you...

You're telling a story where

Israel, in particular,

exerts this kind of influence over people

who don't fully agree with Israeli policy,

but are afraid to argue with it.

And I...

There's one argument.

It's not the four seasons.

Or in the thrall of like,

yeah, early 2000s ideas about the spread of democracy.

Let's just to be very concrete.

Like, how much power do you think Benjamin Netanyahu

is exerting over US foreign policy right now?

A disgusting amount.

I mean, I mean, this has been going on for a while.

I mean, the Benjamin Netanyahu,

when he spoke to Congress under,

I believe, Speaker Boehner,

he was greeted more warmly by the legislature

than the President of the United States was at the time.

So the Republicans took over Congress in 2014,

and he gave him an address,

and it was like he was the President.

I think a lot of Republican Congressmen

want Netanyahu to be the President, frankly.

Like, if...

I mean, it's obvious for everyone to see,

but it just is fundamentally a...

I can't delete thing.

Netanyahu is not that popular in the United States.

No, but among Republican...

Lawmakers and elites, he is.

But the lawmakers and elites reflect...

Sort of.

Yes, and reflect.

Yes, and reflect.

The broad...

The broad...

I mean, no, you...

Most of us, you know.

Most of us, you know.

Most of us, you know, are low information.

Okay, but you know Republicans.

You know American Republicans.

And you know that a default support for Israel

that is rooted not in fear of political persecution

by Zionists, but by some combination

of historical affinities, religious affinities,

and hostility to the Islamic Republic of Iran,

which has done a lot of bad things

to Americans over the years.

Like, that's a real core part of Republican sentiment.

It may be ebbing among the younger generations, right?

No, but it is not a majoritarian perspective in the country.

I mean, if that was true,

Trump would never have been the Republican nominee.

Right, I'm just trying to stay with Israel

because it seems so central to the actual...

It is.

Inside the right critique.

But Trump...

Trump ran for president as more of a dove

than other Republicans,

but throughout his first term,

he also constantly boasted about being the best friend

that Israel has ever had.

He was moving the embassy.

He was doing all kinds of things.

He's in bed again.

He's in bed with him.

But that...

He accepted large Israel-adjacent financing

for his campaign.

And you mentioned the golf before.

The family is obviously in business in the golf,

and the golf was far more of a driver of hawkish foreign policy

in the first term.

I'm trying to understand, in certain ways,

just the future of the right,

and where a right-wing foreign policy goes from here.

Right?

And so it makes a big difference

whether we understand Israeli influence

on Republican foreign policy as a,

primarily about the opinions of conservative voters

who are pro-Israel for a range of reasons,

to the opinions of elites

who are pro-Israel for a different set of reasons,

some mixture of sincerity and fear you're arguing.

Versus three, this narrative where...

Well, no, it's about Trump's business deals

and deal-making in the Middle East, right?

Those are three quite different perspectives.

They can all be true.

They can all be part of the story.

I don't understand the contradiction.

Well, I'm just curious what we think

is sort of the defining force here.

He can't say no to Israel.

He's not saying no to Israel.

This will not stop unless he says no to Israel.

Right.

And he's not saying no to Israel

because he is fundamentally too agreeable

or because he's fundamentally corrupted.

He's agreeable.

He is too close to them politically.

And I think he's somewhat afraid of them.

Why is he afraid of them?

I think they're an intimidating society.

And I think people are afraid of Mossad.

I think people are afraid of Israeli influence

in foreign policy.

They are afraid what he can do to people's careers.

I think this taboo, as you mentioned, is breaking.

But I think it has a lot of explanatory power.

For Trump.

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah, I mean...

Do you think Trump...

Are you think he's afraid of Israel as a force that could...

I don't want to...

I don't want to...

Could break him that could attack him and call him an anti-Semite?

Or as a force that could like expose dark secrets about him?

Yeah, I mean, I think the Epstein story is somewhat relevant.

I don't know.

We don't know because the government is not being transparent.

But I think he was in alliance, fundamentally,

from the beginning because of campaign donations

and the structure of conservative foreign policy elites

with the Israeli hard line.

And the Israeli hard line is they don't...

Yeah, they want regime change.

They also want state collapse in Iran.

They don't really want Iran to exist anywhere close to its current form.

Right.

I guess I've just...

My sense is just that these things

from watching Republican foreign policy in this administration

and previously that these things are over-determined

and that it ends up being easy for the anti-war side

to say, well, you know, it's just Israel

and if we fix America's relationship to Israel...

I think it's a huge deal.

I mean, do you think this would be happening without Israel?

I don't think it would be happening without Israel

in the sense that if an entirely different Middle East

existed, the world would be entirely different.

But I can certainly tell a very straightforward story

where the US relationships

with Saudi Arabia, Cold War issues,

the Iranian revolution, a lot of different things

lead to a long-standing US rivalry with Iran

without Israel being part of that story.

Yes, I can certainly tell that story.

I think that Israel matters profoundly to this

in part for reasons related to

what actual Republican voters believe,

which is something that I think you think is more...

I'm not arguing with you.

We're going to be a naturally good relationship

with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I think we're a long way from that happening

if the Islamic Republic of Iran exists in here.

I think the story, though, is why is this a crisis?

Why do we have to do this now?

Why do countries have to be evacuated

if US citizens?

Why do oil prices have to go up,

potentially $100 a barrel?

Why is the administration seemingly more interested

in being defiant on this issue

than its central issue, immigration?

I mean, say what you will,

and I don't want to debate Minnesota,

but the administration caved on that.

And they may caved because it's too much on this,

but they are really putting their back into this one

in a way they didn't do on their central issue.

Yes, but part of that is that

presidents and second terms

can find foreign policy crises

easier to sort of feel like

they have freedom of movement in.

They don't have freedom of policy.

And Trump himself is...

But he had a lot of freedom of movement on immigration.

The Congress isn't really stopping him.

Congress isn't stopping him,

but I think that courts and public opinion

are from his perspective

actually more difficult adversaries

than foreign dictators seem to be,

especially in the aftermath of Venezuela,

which again, to me,

has more explanatory power.

No, no, no.

I think that has a lot of explanatory.

I'm not just counting that at all.

I think he has become besotted

with these, quote, quick actions.

So the assassination of Salamani,

the 12-day war,

the abduction of Nicholas Maduro.

No, I think that was a huge story

and why he thought,

okay, there's all this pressure on me.

A major part of my coalition

is losing his mind about Iran.

You know, we got to do everything

the Israeli hard line wants.

But maybe it won't be so bad, right?

Right.

And then additionally,

there are a number of smart conservatives

that are, I think,

basically doing the anti-anxiety

what we're putting forward.

They're not putting forward

2002-2003 neo-conservatism,

but, and I think I sense it in the tone of your voice

a little bit,

maybe my view is overheated.

Maybe it's too much.

Maybe I drew too many lessons from the 2000s.

And, I don't know,

this looks pretty bad.

Just to take your own language,

you get state collapse in Iran.

We don't make any kind of, you know,

Venezuelan style deal.

I don't think the U.S.

stays at war with Iran for six months

or puts 50,000 troops in.

I don't know.

No, the government is, I mean,

it's very tellingly

move the over to window on that immediately.

Now troops are possible.

Now forever wars.

Now forever wars are sneer quoted.

But let me, I'll just give you a scenario

where we don't do that.

But it is perceived in six months

that this was a failure

and Iran is a kind of festering landscape.

Right?

There's some kind of civil war inside Iran.

Maybe we are backing Kurdish militias.

Okay.

We've stopped bombing.

There is a more hard line government

in power in Tehran

that can't control its provinces.

Let's say, just as a scenario

that is not,

not maybe the worst case,

but it's quite bad

and people agree this policy has gone badly.

What does that do to

Republican politics and conservative politics?

In going into 2027, 2028

and successors to Donald Trump?

Yeah.

I think there are probably two main views

on where the party and where the movement can go.

And I think this has been

true throughout the Trump era.

There is view number one

and it is that it is a cult.

And it is just Trump as a celebrity.

And once you get rid of Trump,

once he's off the scene,

then it can go back to business,

as usual, Allah 2013, 2014, 2015,

status quo anti.

The other view,

and these are obviously extremes,

and so I think there's truth in both perspectives.

The other view is that the ideology

really does matter.

And additionally,

the fact that the reigning ideology

keeps failing will create a more

and more radicalized polity

that is actually going to,

that Trump will look in some ways

like a moderate, right?

And we've kind of talked about it before.

This is the sort of idea of,

I would say President Tucker Carlson,

something like that, right?

This is the real thing this time.

The Trump will be remembered

as this wobbly,

you know,

it's a regnum before, you know,

we get real right wing policy,

or something like that.

I think obviously both of these things

are kind of extreme,

so just said,

but I'm far more towards that.

And I think,

because why don't I support the Iran War?

Because it doesn't work.

And I think when it doesn't work,

it is actually going to be accelerationist.

Do you think Republicans' conservatives

turn on Trump explicitly

in that scenario,

the way to some degree they turned on Bush?

I was just looking at Tucker's,

you know, his post-Ran episode,

right, and it had a title

like Israel's War on Iran.

He didn't call it Trump's War,

on Iran, right?

Is there a,

like, and you see a lot of that.

I think, I think that it breaks.

For the record,

I think that it's equally culpable.

I just want to be absolutely clear.

I think Israel

and that dynamic set the table,

but I think President Trump is responsible.

President Trump is,

okay, so 50% blame.

So Trump,

do we get to a point

where conservatives

and Republicans agree with that,

where anyone from Tucker

to Meghan Kelly,

to Ben and beyond,

is saying,

not, you know,

the neocons have failed,

but Trump has failed.

The economy sets the tone.

So it all depends

what the economy looks like.

But let's say,

let's say we keep,

the same economy,

roughly.

Yeah, we're keeping the money

machine going on,

and we're going in a debt,

you know, we've basically

been doing the same thing

since 2009.

I think you will see the administration,

if this war goes on for a while,

or if we go into something that's,

you know, Iran looks like a disaster,

like what you described,

say in the autumn,

I think you will see an administration

that will be in the low 30s,

maybe even the high 20s,

of approval rating.

So today,

I think Trump is in the high 30s.

So I'm,

yeah, postulating,

a five to seven point knock

on his approval rating.

I think you will see them,

this is just projection.

I think you will see them

in this scenario.

If Trump hasn't cut bait,

which I think he's still very,

well, might,

they would,

But even if he cuts bait,

if Iran is a disaster area,

the policy is still

depended on going on popularity.

Depends on what's going on.

Depends on what's going on.

It's like,

I mean, I mean,

the IRGC government lobbying missiles

that Shahad drones,

the golf,

still,

I mean, to an extent,

it would imply that

we can't get out at that point,

we can't get back into,

defend our assets

and defend commerce

and air traffic, et cetera, et cetera.

So I don't,

I think this projection is hard to do.

But I think what you're asking is like,

what does it look like

if this actually takes a chunk out

of his approval rating?

And how does the

infrared dynamics go from there?

I think you will see an administration

that,

you're already seeing elements of this,

leaning, you know,

advance and review

to get all the attention.

But like,

aesthetically and spiritually,

this is very hexathian,

right?

Which is just like,

it's screaming at the media,

it's absolute fetishization

of comments and the troops.

It's leaning into the most

loyal Republicans,

which are often religious Republicans.

I mean,

some of the reporting

as the language out of the Pentagon

on why we're doing this

is pretty astonishing.

I think you will see

the White House do that.

I think you will not see them

to now Trump.

Outside critics,

you mean, right?

I don't, I mean,

like, look,

they didn't,

the Democrats never announced Biden

until they could him,

right?

So,

like, I think this is the

equal opposite on the Republican side.

But I think you will see,

and this will be criticized.

You will see,

would be successors,

and you will see

the right-wing dialogue,

be all but explicitly

content and inventory of Trump.

Not him,

and, you know,

there is the perspective

that, like,

this is cowardice, right?

Like, you know,

talkers attacked,

just announced Trump,

etc., etc.

Why won't you?

Well,

because I think it's,

it's not actually

the zone of argument

that will make the most

impact.

And so, I think you will see

the primary debate,

be per-divicious

and openly

condemnatory of the policy,

maybe not the person.

And so, what happens

to the vice president,

J.D. Vance,

in that scenario?

Vance is someone

who is very explicitly,

as we've said earlier

in this conversation,

associated with some kind of politics

of restraint.

Yeah.

He is someone who,

his friends with Tucker Carlson,

is sort of broadly

associated with anti-interventionist

populism.

You're telling a story

where there's a big,

breakdown,

an attack on the administration

from the anti-war right,

what happens to Vance?

Well,

I think, number one,

that the biggest macro

question is whether

or not Rubio is going to

run against Vance,

would be my,

my number one.

And I think it's a weird zone,

where Rubio actually

profits politically

from the administration failing.

So, I think if the

2028 primary race

is not attractive,

he'll just pass.

And in 2032,

he'll be remembered

as this grand man of state

representing a Republican

super state,

Latino,

you know,

yeah, he was for the Iran stuff,

but it wasn't his thing.

Venezuela and Latin America

is his thing.

You could see him,

you know, like people

thought Connie Rice could run, right?

Like it's just,

you know,

she had more going on

than just that.

It wasn't Dick Cheney running.

And I think

that could be very attractive to Rubio,

because the reality is,

is Rubio being VP

with Vance,

all that attractive, right?

I mean,

if they win,

he has to wait eight more years

to run in 2036,

if they lose,

I mean,

not since FDR

has a losing vice president

on the ticket,

become the president.

So it's not,

it's not great.

So I think that's the,

the first open question,

because you could imagine

a Vance Rubio dual, right?

And then I think this stuff

actually becomes extremely

salient,

because Vance's clear allies

are the interventionists.

Right.

But Rubio's clearly

the establishment.

But Vance can't make an argument

that his own administration's

policies have failed.

I think he might have to.

I want to be clear.

So what was the,

what was the central mistake

that Kamala Harris made

among many?

But the central one was,

I think,

the no-daylight policy

with Biden.

I think Vance is going to

have to innovate

beyond that

if he wants to be the president.

And is there anyone

besides Tucker,

who you imagine

as a standard bearer

for a right-wing

institution campaign?

Well, that's quite the

discipline campaign.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is there going to be a right-wing

institution campaign

challenged to Vance?

So Vance,

so we're talking about

flanks basically here, right?

So there's the establishment

flank, because you've got

DeSantis,

Hailey,

it crews,

those people are all going

to try to flank Vance

from like, you know,

it's just a call we can go back.

But if the Iraq war,

sorry,

he's Freudian slip,

right there.

Here we go.

Everyone who's kind of

for the war is doing this.

And with that,

with the Freudian slip,

if the Iran war is

seen as a failure,

it seems to me

that the action in the party

is not

Rhonda Santis

running against the

Rhonda Santis.

I'm not saying what,

I'm not saying what the party

elites think.

I'm just saying,

the action is

who becomes the voice

of, you know,

a kind of this failed

narrative.

You're saying one,

it could be Vance

himself.

Somebody who's

actually willing, right.

Like, I mean, that's what

Sanders in 2016 is.

Inplicitly critical

of the incumbent

democratic president.

Right.

But it seems to me

incredibly difficult

for Vance to do it.

Yeah, I agree.

So then its talker

is there anyone else?

Well, yes, I think I think

it depends how many of them

wronged.

I think there's clearly

four potential anti-

interventionist critics

of Vance who could run.

It is Karlsen.

It is Bannon.

It is Marjory Telegram.

It is Thomas Massey.

it is Thomas Massey. Those were the four I would I would I flag. I struggled to imagine any of those

four winning a one-on-one race, but I but it may be against you. Against Vance. Against Vance.

So imagine it's not going to be a one-on-ones race. I mean I think I think is very clear

that Vance will probably have at least one competitor within his own administration. So if it's not

Rubio, Hexeth, Kristi Nome, I think I've been talked to. Sorry. I'm not talking seriously.

No. Well, let's do Lewandowski's managed one success. All right. Then last last question.

Is this though? If the war goes if the war goes badly, does any of this conversation matter? Or is

it just a poison chalice and no one should want to be a Republican nominee? That's why Rubio's

standards are so perverse. I think he is the most untrustworthy politically in the administration.

And because you think he benefits. I think he's been around failure. I think he benefits from an

wrong treatment. Okay. I'm skeptical that he thinks that way, but I think we've argued enough,

Kurt Mills. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.

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