Less than two days into what the Associated Press described as a new U.S.-led operation against Iran, U.S. lawmakers and Middle East diplomats and experts offered sharply different assessments of how the conflict could unfold and whether it aligns with President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy message.
The Trump administration’s decision to take the United States into war with Iran stood in tension with the president’s long-running “America first” posture, which has emphasized a focus on the Western Hemisphere and minimizing foreign entanglements—particularly in the Middle East. The Associated Press reported that Trump’s justification for joining Israel in the attacks on Iran’s leadership, military and critical infrastructure this weekend was that Iran posed unacceptable and imminent risks to U.S. and allied interests.
The AP also connected the decision to a broader pattern of Trump-era action, citing similar arguments made after Trump’s action last month to remove former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power in a military strike. The article said that even Trump’s closest advisers have been unable to point to a specific Iran threat that required urgent action. It further reported that Trump had said a previous strike on Iran had “obliterated” its nuclear capability, and that the Defense Intelligence Agency said in a report last year that Iran was probably 10 years away from having a missile capable of reaching the United States.
With top ranks of Iran’s government killed in the first hours of the attacks, the AP report said a leadership vacuum in Tehran and bitter divisions among Iranian diaspora opposition groups could pull the United States into a longer conflict of the kind Trump has said he wants to avoid. Less than two days after the start of the operation, those risks were central to the push-and-pull among officials assessing what comes next.
A Middle East diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Arab nations were particularly disappointed that the U.S. and Israel moved ahead with the military option while diplomacy remained possible, adding that they were “very concerned” about potential escalation. The diplomat said de-escalation was “paramount” and warned that the longer the strikes continued, “the worse it will be not only for the region but it will be felt around the world.”
Supporters of the Trump approach disputed that concern. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally and longtime supporter of military action against Iran, argued that “America First is not isolationism.” He said “America First is not head in the sand” and also rejected the idea of fighting by getting “entangled,” saying there would be “no boots on the ground in Iran.” Graham said the strategy instead was to “kill people who wish us ill with a record of trying to destroy us in the region, to take them off the table.”
Graham and other Trump defenders, the AP reported, have argued the president acts quickly when necessary and not before exhausting non-military options. The article said they point to Trump’s order to eliminate the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps during his first term, his strikes last June on several of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities, and the Maduro operation as part of their case for decisive action.
Other Republicans framed the political fallout as likely to support Trump’s decisions. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, predicted that Republican lawmakers—and voters—would back Trump even though they support the president’s “America First” policy. Cotton said he expected “overwhelming support from elected Republicans in the Congress” as lawmakers returned to Washington “later this week,” characterizing them as accountable to voters “in places like Arkansas and states all across the country.”
Democrats, by contrast, warned about both strategy and process. The AP reported that Democrats alleging the war is illegal because it was not approved by Congress remained skeptical, and it drew a comparison to the Venezuelan scenario, saying that the Maduro removal involved a “relatively seamless transition of power.” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said, “I think and fear that we are seeing just the opening salvos of what could be not an in-and-out conflict, but what could be a sustained war in the region,” adding that the U.S. “record of sustained wars in the Middle East leaves something to be desired.”
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a combat veteran, said he wanted to see a strategy from the president, telling NBC that his concern going forward was “what happens now… I don’t want to see a wider conflict in the Middle East.” Another leading voice pushing for a congressional vote, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., asked, on Fox News Sunday, “Haven’t we learned something from 25 years of war in the Middle East? Have we learned nothing?”
The Associated Press reported that Graham and Kelly spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cotton and Warner spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and Kaine spoke on “Fox News Sunday.”