Neocons Wage a Rearguard Action Against Trump's Middle East Peace Drive

Trump wants to negotiate instead of bombing Iran. Jilted war hawks are blaming his advisers.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) does not seem to trust President Donald Trump's foreign policy judgment. In an interview with the Jewish Insider published on Thursday, he called Trump's recent staff choices "alarming" and warned that the administration should steer clear of officials who "make their Obama and Biden predecessors look tough by comparison."

The next day, Fox News ran an article with the headline "Trump's latest hires and fires rankle Iran hawks as new president suggests nuclear deal." The hawks in question were Mark Levin, a former NeverTrumper who hosts a conservative radio show; Kasra Aarabi, director of research at United Against Nuclear Iran, a hawkish nonprofit chaired by Jeb Bush; and an anonymous "Iran expert" who called Trump's hires "very concerning."

It's not just Trump's hires who have the hawks concerned. In a Wednesday interview, Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to goad Trump into saying that he would bomb Iranian nuclear sites and oil refineries. Instead, Trump responded: "I want them to have a great country. They have great potential. The people are amazing. The only thing I've said about Iran is that they can't have a nuclear weapon….There are ways that you can make it absolutely certain if you make a deal."

Although Trump has postured as both a hawk and a dove at times, his stance towards the Middle East in his first term was aggressively hawkish, almost leading to war with Iran. During the 2024 campaign, Trump signalled more of the same, promising to make Iran broke and help Israel "finish the job" in Gaza. But so far this year, he has secured an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and signaled loudly that he wants to resolve America's disputes with Iran.

Along with the deal to free Israeli hostages, Trump adviser Elon Musk also reportedly negotiated for Iran to release an Italian journalist a week before Trump's inauguration.

In the process, Trump has purged many Middle East hawks who served in his first term. A few days before his auguration, Trump mocked "disloyal warmongers" in a social media post. He even revoked the government-issued security detail from former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former Special Envoy Brian Hook, who was in charge of Iran.

"Last year, Trump promised he would blow Iran 'to smithereens' if it ever harmed an American presidential candidate. But pulling security away from Americans who need it, in a move seemingly motivated by personal animosity, he leaves America weaker and Tehran emboldened," the editorial board of the hawkish Free Press complained on Friday. "The president calls his whole agenda, 'America First.' This move is just the opposite."

Two staffers at the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which had been highly influential during Trump's first term, made a desperate plea in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday for Trump to arm Israel for an attack on Iran and prepare U.S. forces for any Iranian retaliation.

"Many in Mr. Trump's America-first movement would probably rather see Iran go nuclear than have the U.S. pre-emptively destroy Iran's nuclear facilities," they wrote, pointing the finger at Vice President J.D. Vance and conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson.

Other Republican hawks have shied away from such a frontal attack on Trump. Instead, they've been claiming that the president is being misled by bad advisers. The pressure campaign has focused on Mike Dimino, the new assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East; Elbridge Colby, awaiting confirmation as undersecretary of defense for policy; and Steven Witkoff, the special envoy who brokered the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and is reportedly responsible for talks with Iran.

"It's amazing to me that over twenty years after the Iraq War, its architects and supporters are still—not fully in control of America's foreign policy, but certainly influential in it," Carlson said on a Saturday episode of his show. "And it's shocking to me that two months after Trump's landslide victory, a race in which he ran against the neocons, the neocons are still brazen enough to try and influence and sabotage his nominations."

Much of this pressure campaign has played out in the pages of Jewish Insider, where Republican sources have tried to cast Dimino as an opponent of Israel. In his own interview, McConnell alluded to Dimino without naming him.

Dimino, who served as a CIA officer before working at the libertarian-aligned Defense Priorities Foundation, is certainly not a fan of current U.S. alignments in the Middle East. "If you look at America's experience as the primary security broker in the region…it has not rendered any lasting political, economic, or security benefits in service of U.S. interests or the American people writ large," he said on a February 2024 panel, adding that U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria are "really there to counter Iran and that's really at the behest of the Israelis and the Saudis."

In an October 2023 interview, Dimino warned that "we should steel ourselves against" the risk of U.S. forces getting dragged into Israel's wars, and that "you can't really address any kind of long-term political arrangements in the Gulf or in the Middle East without also addressing" the Palestinian issue.

Fox News' coverage cast Colby, who will be in charge of U.S. military planning for the entire world, as "cut from the same cloth" as Dimino. To be clear, Colby is no anti-establishment dove. He comes from an old national security pedigree—his grandfather, former CIA Director William Colby, was famously described by the beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg as "chief of dirty tricks"—and Colby's overriding concern today is preventing China from dominating Asia. But that concern has also made Colby skeptical of U.S. aid to Ukraine and U.S. military commitments in the Middle East.

"Beijing will not be deterred from attacking Taiwan by actions America takes in Europe or the Middle East. Common sense dictates that it will only be deterred or defeated by the military might made available for Asia," Colby wrote in a July 2023 essay. "Washington needs to hyper-focus on the Western Pacific. It needs to reorient its military and defense industrial base, money, and political capital to urgently strengthen its defenses along the first island chain."

For years, conservatives who support a U.S. drawdown from the Middle East have tried to make common cause with the pro-Israel camp; Vance and Colby have both argued that indirect support to Israel would allow Washington to avoid direct involvement in the region. But the past few months have disproven that theory—and proven Dimino's warnings correct. In addition to funding and arming the Israeli war effort, the U.S. military has had to step in directly several times to shield Israel from Iranian retaliation and the regional spillover of the war.

Witkoff, who is proudly Jewish and ran an explicitly pro-Israel fundraising campaign during the elections, is hard to pidgeonhole as an anti-Israel fanatic. That hasn't stopped some hawks from trying. The anonymous "Iran expert" who spoke to Fox News argued that Dimino and Witkoff are "difficult to detangle, very concerning."

Soon after the November 2024 elections, Insider zeroed in on Witkoff's real estate dealings in Qatar, the oil-rich Arab monarchy that is a rival with Saudi Arabia. Months later, in a Fox News interview about the ceasefire, Witkoff thanked Qatar for its "enormously helpful" role in the talks and promised to visit Gaza in person.

For some hawks, that was confirmation that Witkoff was a Qatari stooge. Britain's Israel Advocacy Movement posted a clip of Witkoff's Fox News appearance, claiming that he has a "serious conflict of interest" with Qatar and questioning whether he can be trusted.  Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer and frequent congressional witness during the first Trump administrated, released a social media video claiming that Witkoff "has been cajoled by Qatar" and "is fucking up already."

Trump, however, seems pretty happy with Witkoff, who is his personal friend from their years in the real estate business. "He's done a fantastic job. He's a great negotiator," the president said at an executive order signing ceremony. "Steve has a wonderful way about him and people like him. And even in this case, both sides like him, and he was able to make a deal. That deal would have never been made without Steve."

Voters are happy, too. A recent Data for Progress poll shows 78 percent of Americans approving of the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire. Rather than a consequence of wily advisers and palace intrigue, Trump's dovish shift on the Middle East might just be a genuine attempt to fulfill one of the most popular parts of his agenda.

"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," Trump said during his inaugural address. "My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier."