Ben Rhodes

But I think that they're

Their view is like, we have to set as many fires as we can to make this war feel as uncomfortable for people as we can.

But to me, the ultimate future of the war will be determined inside of Iran, inside the politics of Iran.

And that we don't know how that's going to play out at all.

Yeah, I mean, this is going to be a real cleavage inside of his coalition, right?

I mean, this is, again, it's not a secondary issue for a lot of people.

You know, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, I mean, really the leading lights, such as they are, of MAGA.

And look, what's amazing about this is that

One of Trump's most effective arguments was this one against ending forever wars.

It was central to his rise, right?

When he dismantled Jeb Bush on the debate stage in 2015 over Iraq, no other Republican would, that's when he moved to the front of the pack.

Like he would not be president without his kind of repeated opposition to this idea of forever wars.

In the first term too, he was much more careful about the United States getting in conflicts.

He is now bombed

seven or eight countries, I've lost track, in just the first 13 months of his second term.

And he's proving to be not the kind of disruptive corrective to American imperialism and wars of aggression and forever wars.

If anything, he's proving to be the uber manifestation of it.

I mean, even these targets he's going after are kind of the old in the closet targets of hardline Republicans like Lindsey Graham, Venezuela, Iran,

Cuba, you know?

This is all the ancient history in the Republican hawk cupboard is coming out, and people know that, you know?