President Trump heard from many people before ordering last weekend’s strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, G7 leaders, Republican senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, Vice President J.D. Vance, conservative journalists Mark Levin, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson—all weighed in on military action, pro and con. The debate was robust: whether our intelligence was correct, would our weapons work, what might the costs and benefits be, how the mullahs would respond.
What was remarkable wasn’t the intensity of the debate, but its location: It took place almost entirely on the right.
By last weekend, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion had already changed the Middle East profoundly. And America’s oldest political party was AWOL. Normally, Democrats would stake out a position on such a consequential issue. Instead, in the lead-up to Operation Midnight Hammer, they were more interested in ICE raids and performative civil disobedience than in the future of nonproliferation. They had plenty to say about Medicaid work requirements and Juneteenth celebrations. On Iran? Silence.
