Trump's critics have a lot riding on the Iran conflict

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Whether they admit it or not, a lot of people are rooting for disaster for the United States and Israel in the conflict that began on Feb. 28, with the two allies attacking the Islamic Republic's leadership and military targets. And it's not overstating the matter to acknowledge that the diverse coalition of opponents of President Donald Trump and the Jewish state has a lot riding on whether their Cassandra-like predictions of doom for the administration turn out to be right.

If they are, then the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, led by antisemitic podcasters like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, has an opening that they would hope to use to take over the GOP. A disaster in Iran will also put even more wind in the sails of the intersectional left-wing base of the Democratic Party. If that happens, its leading figures, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will hope it means that their faction will be in a position to name their party's 2028 presidential nominee.

Meanwhile, the somewhat less ideological veterans of the Obama and Biden presidencies, of whom the most prominent figure today remains former Vice President Kamala Harris, and their liberal press corps rooting section will also assert that their belief in appeasement of Tehran has been vindicated.

Betting on the regime's survival

Such a result will be a political landscape that will not only look bleak for conservatives and Trump supporters. It might also be a body blow to the last vestiges of what was once a bipartisan consensus in support of Israel that stretched across the American political spectrum. That's because the one thing that links various elements of the loose, anti-Iran war coalition is hostility to, if not outright hatred for, the State of Israel.

Their assumptions about the attack on Iran are based on a belief in the resilience of an evil terrorist regime, coupled with a conviction that Trump's belief in the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance is inherently wrong. They are sure that either the Islamist Republic will survive or that its ouster will lead to chaos that will harm U.S. interests. Many of them are also convinced that, despite Trump's clear intentions to avoid such a scenario, the United States is likely to be bogged down in an endless and unsuccessful conflict in the Middle East. Indeed, some are counting on it resembling those in Afghanistan, and even more so Iraq, which Trump critics on both the left and right are citing as a likely precedent for his decision.

Disillusionment over those wars led to the success of anti-war factions and played a significant role in the rise of President Barack Obama and then Trump. If that scenario is repeated, it could result in the capture of both major political parties by extremists who have nothing in common but their desire to abandon Israel to its fate in a region still dominated by genocidal Islamists. It could also impact the flow of and price of oil. And that could lead to higher gas prices in the United States and hurt Republicans in the midterms, leading to two years of Democratic congressional control that would hamstring what was left of the Trump presidency.

Of course, there's a chance that they are right and that the Iranian government — or what's left of it after strike after strike has decapitated its leadership — will ultimately prevail in one way or another. If so, it would be just another example of a second presidential term that was undone by a foreign-policy misjudgment.

Thinking like Khamenei and Sinwar

But it's also very possible, if not likely, that they are citing the wrong precedent when they talk about another Iraq. They could be making the same mistake others have made when they underestimated Trump's savvy and leadership. They could also be channeling the same catastrophic mistake as those who assumed that Israel was ripe for a defeat that could lead to a collapse in 2023.

The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hamas senior leader Yahya Sinwar never imagined that the war they launched on Oct. 7 with unspeakable atrocities and the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust would turn out the way it has. Not only are they, in addition to many of their associates and followers, dead; the Islamist movement has suffered major defeats in Gaza and Lebanon, in Syria with the fall of longtime dictator Bashar Assad, and now, in Iran. Israel was shaken by that surprise invasion and attack, but it rebounded and is in a much stronger strategic position than it was 29 months ago.

The impact on American politics of success in Iran, which could entail the fall of the Islamist regime as well as the further weakening of its allies in the region, could be just as significant.

Since the fighting may go on, as Trump has indicated, for weeks, predictions as to how it will turn out are, at best, premature.

Given that Trump is mindful of the Afghanistan and Iraq precedents, he will never agree to a U.S. land invasion; what follows these strikes will depend on the actions of the Iranian people as much as on the American and Israeli militaries. We don't know yet if Iranian dissidents — either from within the regime or those who have demonstrated in the streets against the tyrannical theocrats — can seize the opportunity Trump has given them.

Even if they can't, a few weeks of pounding from these two potent militaries will not be without effect. While the Islamists may not fall, Washington will be able to ensure the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, no matter what happens in Tehran. That would likely leave the regime in a position where its ability to inflict harm on the region would be severely diminished.

That, in turn, will make their allies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen much weaker. And it would give Trump the room to maneuver that could also lead to better outcomes in Gaza, where Hamas is hanging on, as well as the further weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The latter terrorist organization fired on Israel during the war's second day, but the reaction from the Lebanese government to the prospect of being dragged into a war to defend the Iranian regime indicated that the era in which Hezbollah dominates that country may be about to end. Far from the war expanding, a weakened Tehran with no ability to inflict further mayhem would only strengthen U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and open the possibility of expanding Trump's 2020 Abraham Accords.

While U.S. elections are determined by economic issues far more than anything that happens abroad, the scenarios in which Trump benefits from his Iran decision seem more realistic than those that predict disaster.

Exposing Carlson and Vance

Indeed, anything short of disaster in Iran will significantly damage Trump's right-wing critics. Carlson and other extremist podcasters who have been trafficking in antisemitic tropes about Israel dragging America into war, and smearing the Jewish state and its supporters, have been speaking as if this is their moment.

Carlson has ignored Trump's demands that he desist from this antisemitic campaign and has instead doubled down on it again. His description of the president's decision as "absolutely disgusting and evil," predicting that it "will shuffle the deck in a significant way" — presumably, in his favor — presages a full break with Trump.

Simply put, after this, Carlson can't pretend that he is merely trying to push Trump in a different direction. He has now joined the anti-Trump resistance.

He has plenty of company there. More than that, his assumption that he speaks for the GOP grassroots may be about to be exposed as a big lie. To date, there is no evidence that Carlson — and the rest of the anti-Israel and antisemitic right-wing podcaster corps, including the likes of the ever more fanatical Candace Owens, neo-Nazi groyper Nick Fuentes and their once mainstream ally, media personality Megyn Kelly — speak for a genuine political movement.

These political commentators may have a lot of viewers and listeners, but how many of them are bots, as opposed to Republican primary voters? Unlike the left, there is no indication that in 2027, there will be a right-wing "Squad" of antisemites to make common cause with the dozens of Israel-hating "progressives" caucusing with the Democrats.

Anything short of the sort of Iraq-style fiasco in Iran that Trump is deliberately refusing to allow to happen will expose this segment of the MAGA movement as a politically marginal faction in a way that is not true of the left.

That could also undermine the prospects of Vice President JD Vance, whose huge lead for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination could diminish if he doesn't soon disassociate himself from Carlson. It could open up the possibility of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting into a race that he now says he won't enter. Rubio has become far more visible and seemingly close to Trump in the past few months as foreign-policy issues relating to Venezuela, relations with America's European allies, the president's Board of Peace to help reconstruct Gaza and the conflict with Iran have dominated the news. A good outcome — or at least one that is not another Iraq — makes him the most important figure in the administration not named Trump.

The left's stake in regime survival

The strengthening of Israel as a result of events in Iran could also impact the Democrats.

Nothing — not even the collapse of a terror regime in Iran — will convince the Trump-haters that the president is right about anything. They are ideologically and temperamentally committed to "resisting" the president, rather than being a loyal opposition. The Democrats' left-wing base is also wedded to toxic, left-wing, neo-Marxist ideas that have convinced them of the truth of the big lies about Israel — and its Jewish supporters — as being "white" oppressors.

What they aren't counting on is a transformation of the Middle East in which anti-Israel Islamists and other extremists are no longer able to bolster the PalestiniansWhether they admit it or not, a lot of people are rooting for disaster for the United States and Israel in the conflict that began on Feb. 28, with the two allies attacking the Islamic Republic's leadership and military targets. And it's not overstating the matter to acknowledge that the diverse coalition of opponents of President Donald Trump and the Jewish state has a lot riding on whether their Cassandra-like predictions of doom for the administration turn out to be right.

If they are, then the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, led by antisemitic podcasters like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, has an opening that they would hope to use to take over the GOP. A disaster in Iran will also put even more wind in the sails of the intersectional left-wing base of the Democratic Party. If that happens, its leading figures, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will hope it means that their faction will be in a position to name their party's 2028 presidential nominee.

Meanwhile, the somewhat less ideological veterans of the Obama and Biden presidencies, of whom the most prominent figure today remains former Vice President Kamala Harris, and their liberal press corps rooting section will also assert that their belief in appeasement of Tehran has been vindicated.

Betting on the regime's survival

Such a result will be a political landscape that will not only look bleak for conservatives and Trump supporters. It might also be a body blow to the last vestiges of what was once a bipartisan consensus in support of Israel that stretched across the American political spectrum. That's because the one thing that links various elements of the loose, anti-Iran war coalition is hostility to, if not outright hatred for, the State of Israel.

Their assumptions about the attack on Iran are based on a belief in the resilience of an evil terrorist regime, coupled with a conviction that Trump's belief in the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance is inherently wrong. They are sure that either the Islamist Republic will survive or that its ouster will lead to chaos that will harm U.S. interests. Many of them are also convinced that, despite Trump's clear intentions to avoid such a scenario, the United States is likely to be bogged down in an endless and unsuccessful conflict in the Middle East. Indeed, some are counting on it resembling those in Afghanistan, and even more so Iraq, which Trump critics on both the left and right are citing as a likely precedent for his decision.

Disillusionment over those wars led to the success of anti-war factions and played a significant role in the rise of President Barack Obama and then Trump. If that scenario is repeated, it could result in the capture of both major political parties by extremists who have nothing in common but their desire to abandon Israel to its fate in a region still dominated by genocidal Islamists. It could also impact the flow of and price of oil. And that could lead to higher gas prices in the United States and hurt Republicans in the midterms, leading to two years of Democratic congressional control that would hamstring what was left of the Trump presidency.

Of course, there's a chance that they are right and that the Iranian government — or what's left of it after strike after strike has decapitated its leadership — will ultimately prevail in one way or another. If so, it would be just another example of a second presidential term that was undone by a foreign-policy misjudgment.

Thinking like Khamenei and Sinwar

But it's also very possible, if not likely, that they are citing the wrong precedent when they talk about another Iraq. They could be making the same mistake others have made when they underestimated Trump's savvy and leadership. They could also be channeling the same catastrophic mistake as those who assumed that Israel was ripe for a defeat that could lead to a collapse in 2023.

The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hamas senior leader Yahya Sinwar never imagined that the war they launched on Oct. 7 with unspeakable atrocities and the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust would turn out the way it has. Not only are they, in addition to many of their associates and followers, dead; the Islamist movement has suffered major defeats in Gaza and Lebanon, in Syria with the fall of longtime dictator Bashar Assad, and now, in Iran. Israel was shaken by that surprise invasion and attack, but it rebounded and is in a much stronger strategic position than it was 29 months ago.

The impact on American politics of success in Iran, which could entail the fall of the Islamist regime as well as the further weakening of its allies in the region, could be just as significant.

Since the fighting may go on, as Trump has indicated, for weeks, predictions as to how it will turn out are, at best, premature.

Given that Trump is mindful of the Afghanistan and Iraq precedents, he will never agree to a U.S. land invasion; what follows these strikes will depend on the actions of the Iranian people as much as on the American and Israeli militaries. We don't know yet if Iranian dissidents — either from within the regime or those who have demonstrated in the streets against the tyrannical theocrats — can seize the opportunity Trump has given them.

Even if they can't, a few weeks of pounding from these two potent militaries will not be without effect. While the Islamists may not fall, Washington will be able to ensure the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, no matter what happens in Tehran. That would likely leave the regime in a position where its ability to inflict harm on the region would be severely diminished.

That, in turn, will make their allies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen much weaker. And it would give Trump the room to maneuver that could also lead to better outcomes in Gaza, where Hamas is hanging on, as well as the further weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The latter terrorist organization fired on Israel during the war's second day, but the reaction from the Lebanese government to the prospect of being dragged into a war to defend the Iranian regime indicated that the era in which Hezbollah dominates that country may be about to end. Far from the war expanding, a weakened Tehran with no ability to inflict further mayhem would only strengthen U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and open the possibility of expanding Trump's 2020 Abraham Accords.

While U.S. elections are determined by economic issues far more than anything that happens abroad, the scenarios in which Trump benefits from his Iran decision seem more realistic than those that predict disaster.

Exposing Carlson and Vance

Indeed, anything short of disaster in Iran will significantly damage Trump's right-wing critics. Carlson and other extremist podcasters who have been trafficking in antisemitic tropes about Israel dragging America into war, and smearing the Jewish state and its supporters, have been speaking as if this is their moment.

Carlson has ignored Trump's demands that he desist from this antisemitic campaign and has instead doubled down on it again. His description of the president's decision as "absolutely disgusting and evil," predicting that it "will shuffle the deck in a significant way" — presumably, in his favor — presages a full break with Trump.

Simply put, after this, Carlson can't pretend that he is merely trying to push Trump in a different direction. He has now joined the anti-Trump resistance.

He has plenty of company there. More than that, his assumption that he speaks for the GOP grassroots may be about to be exposed as a big lie. To date, there is no evidence that Carlson — and the rest of the anti-Israel and antisemitic right-wing podcaster corps, including the likes of the ever more fanatical Candace Owens, neo-Nazi groyper Nick Fuentes and their once mainstream ally, media personality Megyn Kelly — speak for a genuine political movement.

These political commentators may have a lot of viewers and listeners, but how many of them are bots, as opposed to Republican primary voters? Unlike the left, there is no indication that in 2027, there will be a right-wing "Squad" of antisemites to make common cause with the dozens of Israel-hating "progressives" caucusing with the Democrats.

Anything short of the sort of Iraq-style fiasco in Iran that Trump is deliberately refusing to allow to happen will expose this segment of the MAGA movement as a politically marginal faction in a way that is not true of the left.

That could also undermine the prospects of Vice President JD Vance, whose huge lead for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination could diminish if he doesn't soon disassociate himself from Carlson. It could open up the possibility of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting into a race that he now says he won't enter. Rubio has become far more visible and seemingly close to Trump in the past few months as foreign-policy issues relating to Venezuela, relations with America's European allies, the president's Board of Peace to help reconstruct Gaza and the conflict with Iran have dominated the news. A good outcome — or at least one that is not another Iraq — makes him the most important figure in the administration not named Trump.

The left's stake in regime survival

The strengthening of Israel as a result of events in Iran could also impact the Democrats.

Nothing — not even the collapse of a terror regime in Iran — will convince the Trump-haters that the president is right about anything. They are ideologically and temperamentally committed to "resisting" the president, rather than being a loyal opposition. The Democrats' left-wing base is also wedded to toxic, left-wing, neo-Marxist ideas that have convinced them of the truth of the big lies about Israel — and its Jewish supporters — as being "white" oppressors.

What they aren't counting on is a transformation of the Middle East in which anti-Israel Islamists and other extremists are no longer able to bolster the Palestinians' century-old futile war against the Jewish state. That won't silence the Israel-haters that proliferate throughout the liberal mainstream media and elsewhere in society. But it will make it easier for a counter-force of moderates who, at the very least, don't want support for a genocidal war to further tarnish the Democrats' brand to emerge as a force in 2028. If the war in Iran makes future conflict less likely, that exposes and undermines left-wingers who have gone all-in on Israel-bashing and helps those who want to talk about other issues.

Such a faction won't agree with Trump on the Middle East in the manner of a Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) or likely nominate an ardent supporter of Jerusalem. But it will further diminish the influence of the Obama administration alumni and liberal critics of Israel, who have been wrong about everything in the Middle East for the past four decades.

A good outcome opens up the possibility of a future in which both parties move in a more reasonable direction on Israel and the Middle East, and harm the prospects of extremists who share a predilection for antisemitism.

There may be much to fear in the coming days and weeks as the wounded regime seeks to lash out and, as it has already done, kill Americans, Israelis, residents of the Gulf State and wherever else it might reach with its missiles.

Still, what those who are betting on disaster in Iran aren't taking into account is the possibility that Trump's keen instincts for when to strike and his instinctual good judgment when it comes to defending American interests against its enemies will actually be a political success for him — and a defeat for both his left-wing and right-wing opponents.

' century-old futile war against the Jewish state. That won't silence the Israel-haters that proliferate throughout the liberal mainstream media and elsewhere in society. But it will make it easier for a counter-force of moderates who, at the very least, don't want support for a genocidal war to further tarnish the Democrats' brand to emerge as a force in 2028. If the war in Iran makes future conflict less likely, that exposes and undermines left-wingers who have gone all-in on Israel-bashing and helps those who want to talk about other issues.

Such a faction won't agree with Trump on the Middle East in the manner of a Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) or likely nominate an ardent supporter of Jerusalem. But it will further diminish the influence of the Obama administration alumni and liberal critics of Israel, who have been wrong about everything in the Middle East for the past four decades.

A good outcome opens up the possibility of a future in which both parties move in a more reasonable direction on Israel and the Middle East, and harm the prospects of extremists who share a predilection for antisemitism.

There may be much to fear in the coming days and weeks as the wounded regime seeks to lash out and, as it has already done, kill Americans, Israelis, residents of the Gulf State and wherever else it might reach with its missiles.

Still, what those who are betting on disaster in Iran aren't taking into account is the possibility that Trump's keen instincts for when to strike and his instinctual good judgment when it comes to defending American interests against its enemies will actually be a political success for him — and a defeat for both his left-wing and right-wing opponents.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of Jewish News Syndicate. He's been a JWR contributor since 1998.