President Trump is punching back at critics and doubters as he tries to bolster his claim that the U.S. bombing of Iran was a full success, strategically and politically.

Trump and his allies have reacted furiously to media reports about an early assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which contended that Iran’s nuclear program had likely been set back by only a few months by the U.S. bombing.

This assessment is a far cry from the claims made by Trump and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump said the campaign had left Iran’s nuclear facilities “fully obliterated.” The Israeli prime minister has said the Iranian program was “brought to ruin.”

The issue is important to Trump for domestic political reasons as well as on the global stage.

He had been under an unusual amount of pressure because of the crosscurrents within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) coalition on the issue of U.S. forces getting directly involved in the assault on Iran.

Figures like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have argued vociferously that Trump has risked getting the U.S. sucked into yet another war in the Middle East — even as more hawkish Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) contend that maximalist American support for Israel could transform the region.

Those fights got so intense that a number of influential figures on the online right have been hurling insults at each other. The tensions have also led........

© The Hill