They say there’s always a tweet..!
Former US President Donald Trump, during his time in office and throughout his public career, repeatedly denounced prolonged American military engagements in the Middle East.
He was particularly critical of President Barack Obama, once alleging that Obama would initiate a war with Iran to secure reelection.
In a 2011 video statement, Trump declared, “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective. So the only way he figures that he’s going to get reelected — and as sure as you’re sitting there — is to start a war with Iran.”
Trump on Nov. 16, 2011:
“Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective. So the only way he figures that he’s going to get reelected — and as sure as you’re sitting there — is to start a war with Iran.” pic.twitter.com/usZFLiHnBw
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 3, 2020
Despite those prior positions, Trump is reportedly weighing the possibility of supporting Israeli military action against Iran. On the campaign trail, he often condemned what he termed “stupid endless wars” in the region, while simultaneously insisting that Iran “can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
In 2013, Trump posted, “I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!” He consistently criticized Obama for, in his view, failing to negotiate effectively with the Iranian government.
More recently, Trump dismissed statements made by his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, regarding Iran’s nuclear intentions. Gabbard said Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, a claim Trump said he did not care about.
“I don’t care what Tulsi says”
Trump is throwing his most politically loyal intel chiefs under the bus for the foreign apartheid state that bribed him
He’s little more than an ogre like vehicle for an Israeli coup pic.twitter.com/7nr3oeV2nC
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) June 17, 2025
The prospect of renewed US military involvement in the region has deepened divisions within the Republican Party, particularly between its isolationist and interventionist factions.
I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2013
On Tuesday, Representative Thomas Massie, a conservative Republican from Kentucky, joined Democrats in introducing legislation to prevent Trump from deploying US forces in “unauthorised hostilities” against Iran without explicit congressional approval.
“This is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution,” Massie posted on X.
Advocates of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy doctrine have reminded the public of his commitment to keeping the United States out of protracted conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of US service members.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a prominent voice in the populist right, has publicly urged the United States to avoid entanglement in any conflict with Iran. On his podcast, he harshly criticized Republican “warmongers,” prompting a sharp response from Trump, who referred to Carlson as “kooky.”
In a rare public disagreement with the former president, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene defended Carlson, asserting that support for military intervention in Iran was incompatible with the “America First” vision. “She said anyone who supported such an intervention was not ‘America First.’”
