Does the Iran War Put America First?

Skip to contentSkip to site index new video loaded: Does the Iran War Put America First? transcript Does the Iran War Put America First? How the antiwar right sees Trump’s foreign policy. This Is why the administration is so vulnerable to the criticism that this is so similar to Iraq — Because it is so similar to Iraq. So whatever happened to America First? ‘Today, the United States military continues to carry out large scale combat operations in Iran.’ It doesn’t feel like a war with Iran was quite what Donald Trump campaigned on in 2024. ‘We’re going to end these endless wars. Endless wars. They never stop. Do you ever see these wars? They go on for 14 years. 20 years.’ And my guest this week thinks it’s a big betrayal of the voters who put him in the White House. Curt Mills, welcome to Interesting Times. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So I’m going to do some stage-setting here for anyone in the audience who doesn’t follow all of the ins and outs of right-wing foreign policy debates. But you are in charge of The American Conservative magazine, which is a magazine founded by Pat Buchanan, among other people, in opposition to the looming Iraq war. And for a long time, The American Conservative was a pretty lonely voice for foreign policy restraint, a kind of antiwar, anti-imperial conservatism. But throughout the Trump era, it’s been seen as much more influential — maybe closer to what Trump himself believes. But here we are. The U.S. is at war, and it is a war. It’s not a, whatever, a large-scale combat operation. We’re at war with Iran. We’re still backing Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. We’ve intervened in Venezuela. We’ve intervened in Nigeria. There’s a long list. So, whatever this looks like, I would not describe it as a dovish or restraint-oriented administration. And however you would describe your faction on the right — you can call it anti war MAGA. We can call it America First. Whatever label you want to use seems to be losing. So give me a big picture account of why that’s happened. Why, in the broadest sense, the second Trump administration turned out to be much more hawkish than a lot of people expected? It seems pretty clear to me that the ultimate deciding factor is the president’s personality, and own determinations. There are a number of people in this administration — there are real cadres — that believe in non-interventionism. They were put into personnel throughout the administration, in a much more pronounced way than in term one. This generation is younger, I think, very notably at the cabinet level, but also at the sub-cabinet level. There was every indication that when Trump came in first day of term two, first month of term two — that they really wanted to get the ball rolling on a number of these endeavors. In fact, they tried before he was even in power. The president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff — if you remember, the transition in mid-January 2025 — imposed a ceasefire on the Israelis that was very unpopular among the Israeli right. Trump opened up negotiations and announced it side by side with Benjamin Netanyahu, with Iran in April of 2025. Vice President Vance led a caustic showdown with Zelensky in February of 2025, indicating the administration was going to take a hard line in getting out of the war. Even on pet projects of people like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, there was every indication that there