Donald Trump’s Republican allies in the United States have lined up to laud the strikes on Iran, as responses to the president’s war have largely split along partisan lines.
Despite the rise of a noninterventionist wing within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Republican opposition to the war on Iran remains scant, underscoring the persisting power of foreign policy hawks within the party.
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“Today, Iran is facing the severe consequences of its evil actions,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement backing the war.
“President Trump and the Administration have made every effort to pursue peaceful and diplomatic solutions in response to the Iranian regime’s sustained nuclear ambitions and development, terrorism, and the murder of Americans – and even their own people,” Johnson said.
The claim that Trump tried diplomacy first before bombing Iran and emphasising Tehran’s supposed threats to the US was a recurring theme in Republican statements welcoming the attacks.
Trump, in fact, ordered the bombing of Iran in a joint operation with Israel on Saturday while US and Iranian negotiators were still engaged in talks over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who had mediated the indirect talks, believed a deal to ensure peace was closer than ever.
“Pres Trump gave IRAN PLENTY OF NEGOTIABLE OPPORTUNITY,” Senator Chuck Grassley wrote on X.
Congressman Randy Fine, a Trump ally with a history of anti-Muslim statements, also expressed support for the strikes.
“We are with you, Mr. President,” Fine wrote on X.
“We will cut off the head of the snake of Muslim terror, Bring lasting peace to the Middle East, And save the Iranian People. Bombs away.”
Minimal dissent
Many Republican members of Congress also rushed to hail the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“President Trump just changed ‘Death to America’ to ‘Death by America,’” Senator Bernie Moreno wrote on X.
Lindsey Graham, a hawkish senator and staunch advocate for government change in Iran, said “unleashing” Washington’s military powers against Iran sent a message to Russia and China.
“All I can say about President Trump, I’ve never met a man like him. I’ve never met anybody so determined to be a peacemaker, but you don’t want to get on his bad side,” Graham told Fox News.
Even conservative commentators who had warned against the war, such as podcaster Tucker Carlson, were largely muted on Saturday.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally who fell out with the US president and quit Congress earlier this year, shared several posts arguing that war with Iran does not advance US interests.
Greene noted that Trump had presented himself as a pro-peace candidate when running for president.
“Does war with Iran help the mental health crisis in America or help the drug addiction pandemic in America? Nope. Does war with Iran do anything to help American families stay together and survive? No, not at all,” she wrote.
“But within hours of war with Iran it was reported approximately 40 innocent girls, school children, in Iran were killed by bombs from Israel. And they don’t care; they killed thousands of innocent children in Gaza, and apparently our Pro-Peace administration doesn’t care either,” Greene added.
Congressman Tom Massie, whom Trump is trying to oust by backing a primary challenge against him, declared himself a rare Republican critic of the war.
“I am opposed to this War,” he wrote on X. “This is not ‘America First.’”
Massie promised to push forward with a bill to rein in Trump’s power to attack Iran when Congress reconvenes in the coming days.
Democrats’ response
Many Democrats focused on the legal aspect of the attacks on Iran, arguing that Trump should have sought congressional approval. The US Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the authority to declare war.
Still, many welcomed the death of Khamenei while criticising Trump’s strategy.
“I’m not going to shed any tears as it relates to his death. He’s brutalised his own people and built an Iran that is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told National Public Radio.
“But what comes next is unclear because the Trump administration has not been able to articulate a plan, one to ensure that US forces are not entangled in a forever war in the Middle East, which we know would be a disaster,” Jeffries said.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine cast doubt over the assertions that Iran posed an imminent threat to the US, which will likely be cited as Trump’s legal argument for the attack.
“I’m on two committees that give me access to a lot of classified information; there was no imminent threat from Iran to the United States that warrants sending our sons and daughters into yet another war in the Middle East,” Kaine told CNN.
“I’m going to do everything I can to stop it.”
But some pro-Israel Democrats broke ranks with their party and praised the war without qualifications.
“President Trump has been willing to do what’s right and necessary to produce real peace in the region,” Senator John Fetterman wrote on X.
“God bless the United States, our great military, and Israel,” he wrote.
