Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steve Bannon lead voices on right seeing airstrikes as break with ‘America first’ doctrine
Saturday’s US strikes on Iran provoked conflicting reactions from isolationist Republicans who support Donald Trump’s Make America great again (Maga) movement, catching them – like many Democrats – between supporting efforts against nuclear proliferation and opposing American intervention in foreign conflicts.
The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – a loyalist to the president – reacted to the strikes by urging those in the US to pray that terrorists do not attack “our homeland” in retaliation.
“Let us join together and pray for the safety of our US troops and Americans in the Middle East,” Greene wrote on X.
But Greene had not been so supportive in a message posted 30 minutes before Trump announced news of the surprise strikes on Saturday evening.
In that message, Greene wrote: “Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war. There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if [its prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.”
The former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, who has been an opponent of US military intervention in Iran, hit out at the president for thanking Netanyahu in a national address shortly after the strikes.
