Steve Bannon – stubborn, irrepressible, and very smart right/far-right public intellectual and once ally, chief strategist, and bestie of US President Donald Trump – is back in the news. And in a way that speaks to much more than the ups and downs, ins and outs of US elite careers.

Because the hill he is fighting on this time is resistance to the US waging another all-around devastating war in the Middle East in the service of Israel and its powerful lobby in America.

Bannon, make no mistake, is not taking a de facto – if still all too limited – stand against Israel because of its apartheid, genocide, and wars of aggression. He ought to, obviously, especially as a man flaunting his Christian belief. (From one sort-of-Roman-Catholic to another, Steve: Our Lord Jesus Christ really didn’t like the child killers, and I am pretty sure he would have found the lingerie-camouflage cross-dressers with machine guns rather off-putting, too.)

But then, if Bannon were to advance principled moral objections here, he would not be Steve Bannon, a very conservative American, who will probably never shake off deeply ingrained mental habits of cynicism and supremacism. Indeed, he has made sure to stress that he remains a “big supporter” and “defender of Israel.”

Yet, from Trump’s perspective – and that of the Israeli influence agents surrounding him – Bannon’s line of attack is, given American political culture, more politically dangerous than a genuinely moral stance. Because Bannon is positioning American national interest against following Israel’s lead. Declaring that Israel pursues an “Israel First” policy – you bet: about as egotistically as Berlin’s “Germany First” trip between 1933 and 1945 – Bannon has dared state the obvious: Israel’s interests are not identical with those of the US, and therefore, a genuine “America First” policy must not obey Israel.

Hence, stay out of the war against Iran. Or to be precise, get out of it. Especially since, as Bannon argues not implausibly, with the ongoing Ukraine War, the Gaza Genocide (which he of course fails to name as such), and now the Israeli assault on Iran, we are not really drifting toward World War III but already in its early stages. And, let’s face it, if there’s a World War III Bannon would support, that would be the one targeting China. One more reason why he believes the US should decrease – not increase – its engagement in the Middle East (and Europe, too): so that it can better “pivot to Asia.”

Whether you agree with Bannon on China (I don’t) and World War III or believe that we are “merely” teetering on the threshold to a third global conflagration, Bannon is, of course, right that Washington must, in its own national interest, finally stop obeying Israel.

In terms of domestic politics in the US, Bannon’s sally signals, as he himself argues and the Financial Times recognizes, a lethally dangerous split among Trump’s domestically indispensable MAGA base. For Bannon, the whole Trump agenda, as he sees it, of ending “forever wars,” mass deportations, and recasting global trade to benefit the US and its manufacturing sector in particular, is in danger if the wars do not, in fact, finally end.

The trigger for this perfect storm brewing inside MAGA is the perfect mess Trump and his team have made over the attack on Iran: Despite their clumsy mixed messaging – really, contradictory lying and boasting – Israel’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iran can, obviously, only be waged because of massive American support. Despite initial implausible denials, by now Trump has gone so far as to utter what is, in effect, a

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