Trump’s Political Calculus on Iran

His MAGA coalition remains loyal, but if things go badly, he could end up isolated.

Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump in the Situation Room at the White House, June 21.

Donald Trump has astonished the world again. Saturday’s attack on three Iranian nuclear sites was the boldest use of American power since George W. Bush launched his shock-and-awe campaign against Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Trump’s Political Calculus on Iran

The effectiveness and consequences of the daring raid remains unclear. We don’t yet know how badly Iran’s facilities were hit, or how much fissile material and equipment had been evacuated. Nor do we yet know what comes next. Does Iran plan further retaliation after Monday’s limited strike against an American base in Qatar? How long will Israel continue to follow up the attack, and how effective will more Israeli attacks on regime facilities be? Will this be the last direct American attack on Iran? Will Mr. Trump be dragged into a “forever war” of his own?

The answers will emerge in due course; for now, it is more useful to look at the political calculations that led Mr. Trump to defy the restrainer wing of his coalition on what, for many Trump supporters, is the cause that brought them into politics and the defining issue of their lives.

America’s 21st-century track record in the Middle East, under presidents of both parties, has been appalling. From Mr. Bush’s ill-fated invasion of Iraq to Barack Obama’s shambolic intervention in Libya and Joe Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, American presidents have blundered across the region, losing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in one ill-judged escapade after another. These costly failures alienated a generation of Americans, fueling populist isolationism on the right and socialist anti-Americanism on the left.

Mr. Trump campaigned against the forever wars of his predecessors and many of his most fervent supporters expected him to withdraw from the Middle East rather than bomb it. Now, in what may prove to be the decisive moment of his second term, the president has struck at the heart of Iranian power. And far from reassuring supporters that the attack was a one-off, Mr. Trump has invoked the phrase “regime change” for Iran as he contemplates the future.

As the echoes of the explosions faded in Iran, the political shock waves were reverberating in the U.S. Tucker Carlson and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez figuratively stand side by side protesting on the barricades while John Bolton and the ghost of John McCain cheer the president on. For the most part, however, the MAGA coalition has stayed loyal to its president, with leaders from Vice President JD Vance on down expressing both personal and political support. There are, however, no guarantees. If Saturday’s attack leads to another endless and costly military conflict, Mr. Trump could end up politically isolated.

But he may be less exposed to this risk than many suppose. Lyndon B. Johnson felt unable to walk away from the Vietnam conflict even as it broke the Democratic Party. Mr. Bush’s sense of duty compelled him to continue the Iraq war long after it became a political liability. Mr. Trump is harder to trap and would likely move to escape an unpopular conflict as rapidly and unscrupulously as his political interests required.

Despite the fulminations of highly visible anti-Israel voices online and in the media, in siding with Israel against Iran, Mr. Trump is aligned with the majority of his coalition. In a Fox News survey released June 18, 73% of Republicans supported Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Eighty-one percent of respondents said that events in the Middle East matter to the U.S., and 78% were “extremely” or “very” concerned about Iran getting a nuclear bomb. Support for American military aid to Israel peaked at 60% in November 2023 after the Hamas attack the previous month, but it has recovered from a March low of 50% to 53% in June. Seventy-one percent of Republicans favor U.S. financial aid to Israel’s military.

Because the MAGA movement represents such a break with the dominant trends in American politics before 2016, its internal factional disputes can confuse outsiders. On many issues the Trump base is united. It is skeptical of international institutions like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. It rejects the idea that the U.S. should serve as a global social worker or the world’s policeman.

But there are deep differences below this superficial agreement, and Israel policy brings them to the fore. The hard-core restrainers, rooted in the Jeffersonian tradition of principled isolationism, see the U.S.-Israel relationship as toxic, drawing America into an endless series of Middle East conflicts. The larger Jacksonian wing of the coalition sees Israel as an ideal ally and wants the U.S. to support it.

The military strikes against Iran played to the Jacksonian wing of the GOP. Mr. Trump’s Middle East policy will likely reflect his sense of the political balance inside his coalition. If that balance changes, American policy will shift, perhaps suddenly, but otherwise the pro-Israel tilt to Mr. Trump’s Middle East policy is likely to remain.