June 22, 2025—President Donald Trump’s announcement that U.S. forces obliterated three Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—has ripped open a festering wound in the conservative movement and set the Middle East ablaze with unpredictable consequences. The strikes, carried out with B-2 stealth bombers and bunker-busting GBU-57 MOPs, mark a sharp departure from Trump’s campaign promises to avoid “forever wars.” Now, the conservative right is fracturing into two camps: the anti-war non-interventionists, who see this as a betrayal of America First principles, and the neoconservative “chicken hawks,” who cheer the escalation as a step toward reshaping the Middle East in Israel’s favor. Meanwhile, the ghosts of past wars—Iraq, Libya, Syria—loom large, warning of the horrors that may follow.
The Great Conservative Schism
Since Trump’s first election in 2016, the Republican Party has been a battleground between those who want to disentangle America from endless Middle East conflicts and those who salivate at the prospect of more. The non-interventionists—Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Dave Smith, and others—have long argued that America’s meddling in the region fuels chaos, empowers radical groups, and drains blood and treasure for no gain. Carlson, on Bannon’s War Room podcast, put it bluntly: “I don’t want the United States enmeshed in another Middle Eastern war that doesn’t serve our interests.” They point to the catastrophic fallout of past interventions: Al Qaeda’s rise after the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan post-Soviet war, ISIS’s emergence from Iraq’s destabilization, and Hamas’s growth under Israel’s occupation of Gaza.On the other side stand the neocons, the old guard of war enthusiasts like Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Lindsey Graham, and Tom Cotton. These are the heirs of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the think tank that pushed for regime change across the Middle East in the 1990s and early 2000s. Kristol, a PNAC founder, famously backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, deriding Trump’s anti-war rhetoric as weak. The neocons found a cozy home among Clinton Democrats, who shared their love for “humanitarian” interventions and global hegemony. Now, they’re back in Trump’s orbit, celebrating the Iran strikes as a chance to “finish the job” and cripple Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Senator Graham called the bombing “the right call,” while Cotton declared Iran’s 46-year “war of terror” against America justified the attack.This split isn’t new, but it’s raw. Posts on X capture the tension: @End_RINOs framed it as a three-way divide—Trump supporters banking on diplomacy, neocons pushing war as the only option, and anti-war conservatives accused of undermining the cause. @QCryptoAI noted Bannon’s insistence that “this is Israel’s fight to finish,” while Carlson warned against escalation. The neocons, emboldened by Trump’s decision, are drowning out the dissenters, branding them anti-Semites or traitors. But the anti-war crowd isn’t backing down, pointing to Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the military-industrial complex—a machine now rattling its sabers louder than ever.
The PNAC Playbook: Lies, Wars, and “Greater Israel”
The bombing of Iran feels like déjà vu for those who remember the post-9/11 era. PNAC’s fingerprints are all over this. In the late 1990s, Kristol and his cohort laid out a vision for U.S. dominance, targeting Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Iran for regime change to secure American and Israeli interests. After 9/11, the Bush administration—led by PNAC alumni like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz—seized the moment. They lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, with Colin Powell infamously waving a vial of fake anthrax at the UN. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, testifying to Congress in 2002, backed the deception, claiming Saddam Hussein was a global threat. The result? A 2003 invasion that killed over 100,000 Iraqis, cost 4,000 American lives, and birthed ISIS in the power vacuum left by Saddam’s execution.Libya followed under Obama. Hillary Clinton, cackling “We came, we saw, he died,” celebrated Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal killing in 2011—sodomized with a knife in a grotesque spectacle. Gaddafi, no saint, had stabilized Libya and abandoned his nuclear ambitions, yet the U.S. and NATO turned the country into a failed state. Syria was next, fractured under Obama and Biden’s watch. The CIA’s arming of “moderate rebels” fueled chaos, empowering ISIS and leaving Bashar al-Assad clinging to power while jihadists carved out fiefdoms.Now, Iran is in the crosshairs. For 20 years, Israel and its neocon allies have claimed Iran is “weeks away” from a nuclear bomb, despite U.S. intelligence— including Director Tulsi Gabbard’s March 2025 testimony—saying Iran halted its weapons program in 2003. Trump dismissed Gabbard’s assessment, saying, “I don’t care what she said,” and pointed to Israeli intelligence instead. The strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were sold as a surgical necessity, but critics like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene argue they’re part of Israel’s broader agenda. “There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first,” she said.What’s the endgame? Some point to the “Greater Israel” agenda, a controversial claim tied to Israeli hawks who envision expanding influence over a fractured Middle East. In 2006, retired General Wesley Clark, speaking with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, revealed a Pentagon memo listing seven countries targeted for regime change post-9/11: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Five down, one to go. The pattern suggests a deliberate effort to destabilize the region, leaving weak, divided states unable to challenge Israeli or U.S. hegemony. Iran, with its 90 million people and formidable military, was always the final boss.
The Fallout: A New Breed of Monsters
Destabilizing Iran won’t be like toppling Iraq or Libya. Iran is larger, more cohesive, and fiercely nationalistic. Its proxies—Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shiite militias in Iraq—have been weakened, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remains a force. Iran’s response so far: missile and drone barrages on Israel, killing 24 and wounding hundreds. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, holed up in a bunker, has vowed “irreparable damage” if the U.S. escalates further.The risks are apocalyptic. Iran could mine the Strait of Hormuz, choking 20% of global oil supplies. Its cyber corps, built after the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet attack, could cripple infrastructure. Pro-Iran militias might resume attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, or Jordan. And then there’s the human cost. Bombing a nation doesn’t turn its people against their regime—it unites them. Images of Iranians rallying in the streets, not for reform but for revenge, are already circulating.
History shows that destabilization breeds monsters. Al Qaeda rose from the ashes of U.S.-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan. ISIS emerged from Iraq’s ruins. Hamas grew under Israel’s iron fist in Gaza. If Iran fractures, what new horrors will fill the void? A resurgent ISIS? A more radicalized Revolutionary Guard? Or something worse, yet unimagined? The neocons don’t care—they’ll be retired, sipping cocktails, while young Americans and Iranians pay the price.Eisenhower’s Warning IgnoredDwight Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the military-industrial complex, a beast that thrives on perpetual war. Today, it’s feasting. Defense contractors, neocons, and Israeli hawks are driving a cycle of violence that radicalizes new generations of jihadists. The anti-war voices—Carlson, Jones, Smith—are shouted down as “anti-Semitic” or “soft on terror,” but they’re asking the right questions: Who benefits from a fractured Middle East? Why are we fighting Israel’s battles? And what happens when a nation of 90 million, humiliated and bombed, decides to fight back?
Trump’s gamble might delay Iran’s nuclear program, but it won’t stop it. Diplomacy, not bombs, has historically dismantled nuclear programs, as seen in South Africa and Libya. Yet the neocons, with their PNAC playbook, push for regime change, heedless of the chaos that follows. Democrats, too, are complicit—some, like Sen. John Fetterman, cheer the strikes, while others, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, call for Trump’s impeachment over the unconstitutional attack.What happens next is anyone’s guess, but the non-interventionists have been right before. Iraq, Libya, Syria—all warnings ignored. Iran could be the biggest disaster yet. The war machine doesn’t care about American lives, Iranian lives, or peace. It cares about power, profit, and control. And it’s winning.