War on Iran: The War of Words

The war on Iran is bringing about political realignments across the Western world as much as it is reorder­ing geopolitics. In the US, there is a civil war raging within MAGA while the global Left finds its anti-imperialist protests challenged by the long-suffering people of Iran and Iranian expats. Democrats have scored an own-goal. Neocons and the Republican old guard are split down the middle. Liberals’ nuanced stand doesn’t have many takers. And the European far-right finds itself caught in a bind.

The war on Iran is bringing about political realignments across the Western world as much as it is reorder­ing geopolitics. In the US, there is a civil war raging within MAGA while the global Left finds its anti-imperialist protests challenged by the long-suffering people of Iran and Iranian expats. Democrats have scored an own-goal. Neocons and the Republican old guard are split down the middle. Liberals’ nuanced stand doesn’t have many takers. And the European far-right finds itself caught in a bind.

MAGA Civil War

Tucker Carlson, Steve Banon, Marjorie Taylor Greene (MGT), et al are ranged against Trump himself and his chief MAGA defender in Laura Loomer. While MGT has stayed civil in her choice of words, Carlson first called the strikes “Israel’s war”, even as fresh evidence indicates it was Trump who forced Benjamin Netanyahu’s hand, and went on to accuse the Chabad- Lubavitch movement of planning to destroy Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem in a visibly anti-Semitic direction. Trump shot back: “Tucker has lost his way... He’s not MAGA.” And Loomer has called for Carlson’s “excommunica­tion” from the GOP. Ironically,an NBC poll found 90 per cent of self-identified MAGA Republicans support Trump’s war against 54 per cent of non-MAGA Republicans.

Neocon Dilemma

Founder of the Weekly Standard Bill Kristol had been a support­er of regime change in Iran since 2003 till the strikes actually began, when he started criticising Trump for not seeking Congressional approval. Kristol ended up practically called a hypocrite in the blowback. Other neo­con stalwarts like Robert Kagan and David Frum were confounded by the fact that a president they despise had undertaken an action they had long believed in. What do you do when your vul­garian dictator does the right thing?

Left without a Mirror

The global Left assembled under various ban­ners everywhere to protest against the “imperialist” attack on Iran which they call “illegal”, “unprovoked”, etc. An expected but still interesting fact was the Democratic Socialists joining these street protests. But when you call for “international workers’ action to shut down the imperialist war machine,” nobody takes you seriously. Iranians who had just survived the late Supreme Leader’s mass murder in January and expats put the Left in its place by thank­ing Trump, showing up the progressives’ disconnect with lived Iranian reality.

Quo Vaditis, Liberales?

The short answer is: nowhere. Liberals, or the centrists are stuck in their predictable groove. They recognise the Iranian regime as illiberal and even terrorist. But they can’t ignore the question of legality and the absence of a post-bellum plan. Centrist think-tanks like Brookings, CFR, the Euro­pean Council on Foreign relations, or the Atlantic Council, have swung from calling the conflict a “war of choice” to warning the IRGC won’t go so easily since regime decapitation rarely works.

Democrats’ Big ‘But’

While the GOP, pre-Trump and MAGA, came together barring Rand Paul to block the war pow­ers bill in the Senate, the party saw quite a few representatives break ranks in the House. And yet, four Democrat repre­sentatives voted with Republicans to keep the war going.Despite the predict­ability of the Congressional left a la Bernie Sanders (Independent), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, the party tied itself up in knots over its opposition to the war even as it stood by the desired outcome: regime change. That certainly handed the advantage to the GOP.

Fatherless Far-Right

In Europe, the far-right seems abandoned by its adoptive American father. Germany’s AfD has split into two camps. AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla condemned missile at­tacks on anybody while co-leader Alice Weidel warned of an immigration catastrophe. But others protested their disagreement with the party line. The nativist wing of AfD, ethno-nationalist and anti-US, has Turned on the pro-US Euro sceptic old guard.

France’s National Rally and Italy’s League  face the same dilemma. The main concern for the far-right is soaring energy prices and if that turned voters against parties hitherto overwhelmingly pro-Trump.