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      House Democratic veterans back moves to limit Trump’s military authority

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      A group of 12 House Democratic military veterans have thrown their weight behind efforts to constrain Donald Trump’s military authority, announcing they will support a War Powers Act resolution in response to the US president’s go ahead for airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.The veterans – some of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan – were strongly critical of Trump’s decision to launch what they called “preventive air strikes” without US congressional approval, drawing explicit parallels to the run-up to some of America’s longest recent wars.“Twenty years ago, in their rush to appear strong and tough, politicians – from both parties – failed to ask the hard questions before starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” they wrote in a letter led by Representative Pat Ryan to Trump sent on Monday. “We refuse to make those same mistakes.”Their intervention comes as multiple war powers resolutions are gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, with the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, pushing for a vote as early as this week to rein in the president’s military actions. The veterans did not specify which measure they would support, as competing versions are being drafted by different Democratic factions alongside a bipartisan effort.The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was enacted to limit the US president’s ability to commit armed forces to fight abroad without congressional consent in the form of a vote.Representatives Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, have been championing one bipartisan resolution, while the ranking Democrats on the House foreign affairs, armed services and intelligence committees are preparing an alternative, according to Punchbowl News.Democratic aides described the latter to the outlet as providing cover for members uncomfortable with backing the Massie-Khanna approach, though lawmakers will not be discouraged from supporting both measures.The adamance against the legality of America’s involvement has only intensified since Trump’s Saturday night strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, and the line from centrist to progressive Democrats has been to charge the president with executive overreach.The New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Trump’s impeachment, describing the attacks as “a grave violation of the constitution and congressional war powers”, while the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, accused the president of misleading Americans and dramatically increasing the risk of war.For the 12 veteran House members, the issue cuts to the heart of their military oath.“We all swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Article 1 Section 8 explicitly requires a vote by Congress to declare war,” they wrote, demanding clear answers about military objectives, estimated costs and potential American casualties before any escalation.The signatories included representatives Gilbert Ray Cisneros Jr, Eugene Simon Vindman, Chris Deluzio, Jimmy Panetta and Ted Lieu.Still, their letter walked a careful line on the broader Middle East conflict, labeling Iran as “evil” and pledging continued support for Israel while warning against the strategic limitations of military action. “While destroying nuclear sites may achieve initial tactical success, it far from guarantees longterm strategic victory,” they argued.The dispute has built on uncomfortable divisions within Trump’s own party, most notably with conservative influencers and independent news media that lean to the right, with Massie and senator Rand Paul emerging as Congress’s most vocal Republican critics of the Iran strikes.But Trump has since escalated his rhetoric, posting on Truth Social about potential “regime change” in Iran and asking: “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”Congressional leaders have also expressed frustration over the administration’s failure to provide adequate consultation before the weekend operation.While Schumer received a call from Trump officials, he was reportedly not told which country would be targeted, and Jeffries “could not be reached until after” the strikes had begun, according to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. More

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      Trump’s war with Iran signals perilous shift from showman to strongman

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      So the military parade that brought tanks to the streets of Washington on Donald Trump’s birthday was more than just an authoritarian ego trip. It was a show of strength and statement of intent.Exactly a week later, sporting a “Make America great again” (Maga) cap in the situation room, the American president ordered the biggest US military intervention in decades as more than 125 aircraft and 75 weapons – including 14 bunker-busting bombs – struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump called it a “spectacular military success” – but it remains unclear how much damage had actually been inflicted.Trump’s gamble was cheered by Israel and Republican hawks. It alarmed some in his Maga base who fell for his rhetoric promising to be an isolationist who would end forever wars. It left egg on the face of Pakistan, which only a day earlier had said it would nominate Trump for the Nobel peace prize.But there was no inconsistency for those paying close attention to the president’s war on democracy, which since January has included a draconian crackdown on immigration – including masked government agents grabbing people off the street and deporting them without due process – and the deployment of marines and national guard troops against protesters in Los Angeles.Trump’s strike on Iran was another example of both his disregard for public opinion – six in 10 Americans opposed US military involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran, according to an Economist/ YouGov poll released on 17 June – and his contempt for Congress.Democrats were quick to point out that his actions were a clear violation of the constitution, which grants Congress the power to declare war on foreign countries. There was no evidence of an imminent threat to the US that might have provided grounds for Trump to act unilaterally.Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the bipartisan Senate national security working group, noted there was no intelligence showing Iran had made the decision to build a nuclear bomb or was constructing the mechanism of a bomb. And in a breach of protocol, leading national security Democrats were not informed of the strikes until after Trump announced them on social media.But once again, Democrats find themselves shut out of power and shouting into the void. Many called for Congress to pass a measure based on the War Powers Act that seeks to block “unauthorized hostilities” in Iran. Congresswoman Summer Lee of Pennsylvania called it a necessary step to “rein in this out-of-control, wannabe dictator”. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called for Trump’s impeachment.Fat chance. Republicans, who control the majorities of both chambers, are willing accomplices in their own subjugation. They remained mostly silent as Trump unleashed Elon Musk’s Doge on the federal bureaucracy, gutting USAID and other agencies under Congress’s purview. In the House of Representatives, they buried their differences to pass Trump’s signature “one big beautiful bill”.Therefore, do not expect Republicans to pull the emergency brake on a Trump train that might be hurtling towards world war three. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, and John Thune, the Senate majority leader, led a chorus of praise for the attack. Frequent Trump dissenters such as Nikki Haley and Mitch McConnell joined the commendation.Perversely, this most unconventional of presidents who ruined the party brand had reverted to Republican Original, taking the kind of action that would meet approval from George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and John McCain.The America First wing, meanwhile, was mostly muted and subdued. Trump’s cult of personality typically trumps differences over policy – and that is not likely to change over a military operation that took place more than 7,000 miles away with apparent success. (A damaging Iranian retaliation, or any suggested of a need for US boots on the ground, could of course change that narrative.)After all, Trump’s isolationism has always been selective: there is Dove Trump and Hawk Trump. Last year, Dove Trump falsely claimed to be the only president in 72 years to have no wars; in fact, Jimmy Carter never declared war or lost a single soldier to hostile action. In his inaugural address in January, he said: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”Yet Hawk Trump looks familiar enough to any student of US foreign adventurism. In his first term, he ordered cruise missile strikes in Syria, expanded military operations in Somalia, intensified the campaign against the Islamic State, dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb in Afghanistan and ordered a drone strike that killed the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. In his second term, Trump’s bombing campaign in Yemen has led to the deaths of almost as many civilians in two months as in the previous 23 years of US attacks on Islamists and militants in the country.View image in fullscreenThese contradictions are where JD Vance, the vice-president, becomes a useful foil. He has been an outspoken isolationist, openly questioning why the US should care about Ukraine’s borders rather than its own. During the Iran crisis he has remained staunchly supportive of Trump, standing beside the president during Saturday night’s televised address and defending the intervention on Sunday’s Meet the Press programme on the NBC network.“We’re not at war with Iran; we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme,” Vance said, using the type of doublespeak that the Bush administration specialised in to conjure phantom weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.He added in the same interview: “I certainly empathise with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objective.”Trump has called on Iran to “agree to end this war”, saying that “now is the time for peace”. It remains to be seen whether the strikes will push Tehran to de-escalate the conflict or widen it further.The former would allow Trump and his army of loyalists to declare victory. The latter would give him potential for a “rally around the flag” effect that puts Democrats in a bind. Nothing suits an authoritarian better than an external threat.The Trump who threw a birthday parade and used the military like a prop invited ridicule. The Trump who deploys troops to the streets of Los Angeles and drops bombs on Iran is altogether more dangerous.Exit the showman. Enter the strongman. More

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      David Lammy refuses to say if UK supported US strikes on Iran nuclear facilities

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      The UK foreign secretary has repeatedly refused to say if the UK supported the US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday or whether they were legal.Interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday for the first time since the US launched airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, David Lammy also sidestepped the question of whether he supported recent social media posts by Donald Trump that seemed to favour regime change in Tehran, saying that in all his discussions in the White House the sole focus had been on military targets.Lammy said western allies were waiting for battlefield assessments of the impact of the strikes, but it was possible Iran still had a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, although the strikes “may also have set back Iran’s nuclear programme by several years”.Ever since the US strikes, senior figures in the Labour government have tried to make their criticism of the action only implicit rather than explicit.Lammy tried to focus on urging Iran to return to the negotiating table, insisting that Iran was in breach of its obligations by enriching uranium at levels of purity as high as 60%.The UK Foreign Office has denied Iranian reports that in a phone call on Sunday with the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, Lammy had expressed regret about the US strikes.Asked if the airstrikes were legal, Lammy said three times it was for Washington to answer such questions.But in the course of a 15-minute interview on BBC Radio 4, he at no point backed the US airstrikes, saying he was not going to get into the issues of whether they conformed with either article 2 or article 51 of the UN charter, clauses that permit military action in self-defence.Saying “there is still an off-ramp for the Iranians”, he admitted discussions with Iran involving France, Germany and the UK last Friday in Geneva had been “very tough”.He said: “Everyone is urging the Iranians to get serious about the negotiations with the E3 and the US.” Iran is currently refusing to talk to the US or Israel while it is under military attack.Lammy said he still believed Iran was engaging in “deception and obfuscation” about its nuclear programme, but added “yes, they [the Iranians] can have a civil nuclear capability that is properly monitored that involves outsiders but they cannot continue to enrich to 60 %”.His remarks left open whether the UK supported the US negotiating position of insisting on zero uranium enrichment inside the country, or whether he was prepared to accept that Iran could enrich to 3.67% level of purity, the maximum allowed in the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015 and from which the UK, unlike the US, has not withdrawn.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also refused to say if he agreed with the latest US intelligence assessment that Iran was close to securing a nuclear weapon, saying instead he relied on the report from the UN nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency. In its latest reporting, the IAEA said it had no evidence that Iran was seeking a nuclear bomb.He said: “You can only deal with the Iranian nuclear programme diplomatically. If Iran is able to enrich beyond 60%, is able to get a weapon, what we will see is nuclear proliferation across the Middle East.”Asked about Trump’s references to regime change he said: “I recognise there is a discussion about regime change but that is not what is under consideration at this time. The rhetoric is strong but I can tell you, having spoken to the secretary of state, having sat in the White House, that this targeted action is to deal with Iran’s nuclear capability.”When pressed to comment on a claim by Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, that by “being blind” on the issue of the legality of the US’s action, European leaders undermined their position on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia, Lammy insisted there was no moral equivalence between the Russian invasion of a sovereign country and the actions the US had taken in Iran. More

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      Western leaders call for diplomacy, but they won’t stop this war – they refuse to even name its cause | Nesrine Malik

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      Since the war on Gaza started, the defining dynamic has been of unprecedented anger, panic and alarm from the public, swirling around an eerily placid political centre. The feeble response from mainstream liberal parties is entirely dissonant with the gravity of the moment. As the US joins Israel in attacking Iran, and the Middle East heads toward a calamitous unravelling, their inertness is more disorienting than ever. They are passengers in Israel’s war, either resigned to the consequences or fundamentally unwilling to even question its wisdom. As reality screams at politicians across the west, they shuffle papers and reheat old rhetoric, all while deferring to an Israel and a White House that have long taken leave of their senses.At a time of extreme geopolitical risk the centre presents itself as the wise party in the fracas, making appeals for cool heads and diplomacy, but is entirely incapable of addressing or challenging the root cause. Some are afraid to even name it. Israel has disappeared from the account, leaving only a regrettable crisis and a menacing Iran. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has called for de-escalation. But he referred to the very escalation he wishes to avoid – the US’s involvement – as an alleviation of the “grave threat” posed by Iran, all the while building up UK forces in the Middle East.The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, underlines the importance of diplomacy while making sure to assert that Iran is the “principal source” of instability in the region. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had seemed to be inhabiting the real world, warning against the inevitable chaos that would be triggered by regime change in Iran and in repeating the mistakes of the past. But by Sunday France had fallen into line, joining the chorus calling for de-escalation and restraint in vague general terms, and reiterating “firm opposition” to Iran’s nuclear programme.If this seems maddeningly complacent to you, let me reassure you that you are not, in fact, missing something. The war with Iran is very bad news, and introduces a number of profoundly destabilising scenarios: regime change with no day-after plan, leaving a large cadre of armed military and security forces in play; the amassing in the region of western military forces that could become targets and flashpoints; or simply a prolonged war of attrition that would seize up the region and open a large festering wound of anger and militarisation. It’s also – and this is something Israel’s assaults have inured us to – killing hundreds of innocent people. To say nothing of the fact that it is, above all the extant risks, illegal.But most western leaders continue to treat it as just another chapter of unfortunate but ultimately fixed realities of the world to manage. And here is the sinkhole at the heart of the entire response to Israel over the past year and a half – a vacant centre. Trump is Trump. No one is expecting him to have a coherent, brave and stabilising response to Israel. But the problem predates him: a political establishment of ostensibly liberal, reliable custodians of stability that has no moral compass, and no care for the norms it constantly claims to uphold. Under its watch, international and human rights law has been violated again and again in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran. Its answer has been to get out of Israel’s way at best, and arm it and provide it with diplomatic cover at worst. Joe Biden’s administration set the tone, and European governments followed. Collectively, they have clung on to a status quo of unconditional support for Israel and, in doing so, shattered the legal and moral conventions that imbued them with any measure of integrity or authority.And yet they still carry on amid the wreckage. Their pronouncements about the importance of diplomacy sound like echoes from an era that has long passed – one before a livestreamed genocide demolished any semblance of a coherent system of international law. What the current moment has revealed is a cohort of regimes fundamentally unsuited to crisis, fit only for management; a crop of politicians whose very role is not to rethink or challenge the way things are, but simply to shepherd geopolitical traffic. Their mandate is indeed to stabilise, but only in the sense of locking in a world order of failing assumptions and hierarchies. It is not to make the world a better place, but to cast a veneer of credibility over why it is necessary that we live in this worse one.This is not to be confused with “pragmatism”. Pragmatism implies a lack of position or vested interest. What is obscured by the language of reluctant engagement is that it is underpinned by beliefs that are defined not by values, but by tribal supremacy. Iran is a country which, in the eyes of a liberal establishment, is never fully sovereign because it has diverged from western interests. It has no right of response when attacked (and in fact, must show restraint when it is). Its people have no right to expect a careful consideration of their future, or indeed the entire region’s. Israel, on the other hand, is a super sovereign, and never culpable.This default position is so naked in its hypocrisy, so ignorant and parochial in its worldview, so clear in its disregard for human life, that it represents a colossal erosion of sophistication in political discourse, and a new low in contempt for the public. Support for Israel can only be defended by facile, logic-defying references to its right to defend itself even when it is the aggressor, and Iran’s “threat to the free world”. Forgive me, but is that the same free world that backed unilateral attacks on four Middle East territories by Israel, a country whose leader is wanted by the international criminal court? At this point, the biggest threat to the free world is itself, which will sacrifice everything to ensure that not a single challenge to its power is allowed to pass.The end result is that such leaders are not only irresponsible, they are unrepresentative, unable and unwilling even to manufacture consent any more. An accelerating nihilism has taken hold. Mandates fray as centrist governments and political parties stray further and further from the public, which in Europe declares a historically low level of support for Israel. In the US (including Trump supporters), a majority opposes involvement in war with Iran. And so the gap between a detached politics and bloody reality widens even further. The managers of western hegemony hurtle into the void, taking all of us with them.

      Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist More

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      Global Markets Dip as Traders Gauge Fallout From U.S. Strikes on Iran

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      Any disruption to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz would have significant economic effects, especially for Asian nations dependent on oil from the Middle East.Stocks edged lower and oil prices climbed in Monday trading in Asia, reflecting investor concern over potential economic fallout from the U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.Futures contracts for the S&P 500, indicating how the index might perform when markets open in New York, slipped by about 0.3 percent. The price of West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude, gained roughly 3 percent. Gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, also rose.Markets in Asia, the first to open after the strikes in Iran, were down. Stocks in Taipei, Taiwan, fell more than 1 percent. Benchmark indexes in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea also dipped.Traders were waiting for clearer indications of whether there would be an escalation in conflicts in the Middle East — particularly any moves by Iran to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.The Strait of Hormuz is a critical transit point for global oil supplies. Last year, about 20 million barrels of oil were shipped through the waterway each day, representing about 20 percent of the world’s total supply. Most of that oil was bound for Asia.Places like Japan and Taiwan rely on the Middle East for almost all of their crude oil imports, meaning that any disruption to traffic through the strait could inflict a large economic blow. China is the largest purchaser of Iranian oil.Oil prices, hovering around $76 a barrel, are expected to enter the $80 range, but if the risk of Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz is seen as increasing, they will rise even further, said Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute. In that case, “the Japanese economy could be exposed to downside risks that exceed those of the Trump tariffs,” he said.Other analysts expect fallout from the U.S. strikes to be relatively short-lived.The oil market is better equipped to respond to shocks than it has been in the past because of spare capacity held by exporters, according to Daniel Hynes, a senior commodity strategist at ANZ Research. Geopolitical events involving producers can have a big impact on oil markets, but in recent years, prices have tended to quickly retreat as risks ease, Mr. Hynes said.Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said there could be more volatility in stock movements this week. But, he said, the market may view the Iran threat as “now gone.” In that case, he said, “the worst is now in the rearview mirror.”Joe Rennison More

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      How Trump Decided to Strike Iran

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      Standing at the lectern in the White House briefing room on Thursday afternoon, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, read a message she said came “directly from the president.”Because of the “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran that could bring the United States back from the brink of jumping into the war in the Middle East, President Trump’s statement said, he would make a decision about whether or not to strike Iran “within the next two weeks.”Mr. Trump had been under pressure from the noninterventionist wing of his party to stay out of the conflict, and was having lunch that day with one of the most outspoken opponents of a bombing campaign, Stephen K. Bannon, fueling speculation that he might hold off.It was almost entirely a deception. Mr. Trump had all but made up his mind to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the military preparations were well underway for the complex attack. Less than 30 hours after Ms. Leavitt relayed his statement, he would give the order for an assault that put the United States in the middle of the latest conflict to break out in one of the world’s most volatile regions.Mr. Trump’s “two weeks” statement was just one aspect of a broader effort at political and military misdirection that took place over eight chaotic days, from the first Israeli strikes against Iran to the moment when a fleet of B-2 stealth bombers took off from Missouri for the first American military strikes inside Iran since that country’s theocratic revolution in 1979.Journalists watching as President Trump addressed the nation after American bombs were dropped on Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday night.Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times More

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      JD Vance claims US is at war with Iran’s nuclear program, not Iran

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      JD Vance has said the US is “not at war” with Iran – but is with its nuclear weapons program, holding out a position that the White House hopes to maintain over the coming days as the Iranian regime considers a retributive response to Saturday’s US strike on three of its nuclear installations.In an interview Sunday with NBC News’ Meet the Press, the US vice-president was asked if the US was now at war with Iran.“We’re not at war with Iran,” Vance replied. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”But Vance declined to confirm with absolute certainty that Iran’s nuclear sites were completely destroyed, a position that Donald Trump set out in a Saturday night address when the president stated that the targeted Iranian facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated” in the US strikes.Vance instead said that he believes the US has “substantially delayed” Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.“I’m not going to get into sensitive intelligence about what we’ve seen on the ground there in Iran, but we’ve seen a lot, and I feel very confident that we’ve substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon, and that was the goal of this attack,” Vance said.He continued: “Severely damaged versus obliterated – I’m not exactly sure what the difference is.“What we know is we set their nuclear program back substantially.”An Iranian member of parliament claimed on Sunday that the Fordo enrichment plant, the focus of seven B-2 bombers armed with 14 premier bunker-busters from the US arsenal, was not seriously damaged.Those bombers returned to Missouri on Sunday.Separately, Bloomberg News said satellite images of the site undermined the Trump administration’s claims that Iran’s underground nuclear sites at Fordo and Natanz had been destroyed.Satellite images distributed by Maxar Technologies showed new craters, possible collapsed tunnel entrances and holes on top of a mountain ridge. But the main support building at the facility remained undamaged, the report said.Maxar said in a statement that images of Natanz showed a new crater about 5.5 meters (18ft) in diameter over the underground facility – but they did not offer conclusive evidence that the 40-meter-deep nuclear engineering site had been breached.The chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said at a Pentagon briefing on Sunday: “Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.”Nuclear non-proliferation analysts are conflicted on whether the strikes will be effective in bringing Iran to the negotiating table or convince them to move more decisively toward enriching uranium stockpiles to weapons-grade, assembling a bomb, and manufacturing a delivery system.In a statement to Bloomberg, Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said there were slim prospects that the US entering the war would convince Iran to increase International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cooperation. The nuclear watchdog has said it is not sure where Iran’s 400lb stockpile of 60% uranium is.“The more likely scenario is that they convince Iran that cooperation and transparency don’t work and that building deeper facilities and ones not declared openly is more sensible to avoid similar targeting in future,” Dolzikova said.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he planned to fly to Moscow to meet with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday morning for consultations. Separately, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his forces were progressing toward its goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threats.“We are moving step after step to achieve these goals. We are very, very close to completing them,” he said. More

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      Trump’s military attack on Iran reveals split among Maga diehards

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      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.Speaking on his War Room web show, Bannon said, “It hasn’t been lost … that he thanked Bibi Netanyahu, who I would think right now – at least the War Room’s position is – [is] the last guy on Earth you should thank.”That came amid ongoing speculation that Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear sites on Saturday stemmed from information that Iran was close to developing a weapon – as supplied by Israeli, and not US, intelligence sources. The issue created an apparent split between Trump and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.The president recently criticized Gabbard and the US intelligence community, saying they were “wrong” in assessing that Iran had not taken the political step of ordering a bomb. Gabbard has denied that she and Trump were not on the same page.Nonetheless, Bannon continued his criticism of the strikes, saying: “I don’t think we’ve been dealing from the top of the deck.”The former White House adviser also criticized Trump for leaving open the possibility of further US strikes if Iran fails to capitulate to US demands. “I’m not quite sure [it was] the talk that a lot of Maga wanted to hear,” he said. “It sounded … very open-ended.”Days earlier, amid signs of a Maga rebellion against the administration’s increasingly hawkish stance on Iran, Bannon told an audience in Washington that bitterness over the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a driving force for Trump’s first presidential victory. “One of the core tenets is no forever wars,” Bannon said.Bannon, though, said “the Maga movement will back Trump” despite its opposition to military interventions.But there are now signs that the Maga “America first” isolationist position may be more amenable to limited airstrikes. The administration has stressed that Saturday’s raids only targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment and not manufacturing locations, population centers or economic assets, including the oil terminal at Karg island.The far-right influencer Charlie Kirk had warned of a Maga divide over Iran, saying “Trump voters, especially young people, supported [him] because he was the first president in my lifetime to not start a new war.”Yet on Sunday, Kirk reposted a clip of an interview with JD Vance on Meet the Press in which the vice-president praised the B-2 pilots from Missouri who carried out the previous day’s bombing.“They dropped 30,000 pound bombs on a target the size of a washing machine, and then got back home safely without ever landing in the Middle East,” Vance said in the clip. “Whatever our politics, we should be proud of what these guys accomplished.”In that interview, Vance suggested Trump had “probably” decided by mid-May that the diplomatic process with Iran was “not going anywhere”. But Vance refused to be drawn on when precisely Trump approved the strike, saying it probably came “over time”. More