CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

“America First” or Endless War? How Republicans Are Betraying Their Own Base Over Iran

Image by Getty and Unsplash .

The war with Iran is not merely another crisis in the Middle East. It has become a mirror reflecting a deeper crisis inside the United States itself: the collapse of the boundary between populist rhetoric and the realities of power in Washington. For years, Republicans—especially the Trumpist wing of the party—presented themselves as opponents of “endless wars.” During his campaigns, Donald Trump repeatedly attacked the Iraq War, blamed neoconservatives for destroying America’s credibility abroad, and promised that American wealth would no longer be wasted in Middle Eastern deserts but invested at home. Millions of working-class voters, exhausted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, believed him precisely because of that message. Yet today, the same political movement overwhelmingly supports military escalation against Iran while rejecting efforts to legally restrict presidential war powers. The contradiction is impossible to ignore. “America First” increasingly looks less like a doctrine and more like a slogan designed to mobilize frustrated voters before quietly surrendering to the permanent logic of Washington’s security state.

The repeated failure of congressional efforts to limit Trump’s military authority is not just a procedural or constitutional issue. It reveals how deeply incapable the American political system remains when confronted with the temptation of war. Every time lawmakers attempt to restrain presidential military powers, Republicans who routinely speak about “small government” and limiting federal authority suddenly transform into defenders of concentrated executive power. The contradiction sits at the heart of modern conservatism in America: a movement that claims to fear centralized government becomes entirely comfortable with massive state power when that power is directed toward military force.

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