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Steve Bannon has warned Donald Trump not to authorise military action against Iran, saying US involvement in another war in the Middle East would “tear the country apart”.
“My mantra right now: The Israelis have to finish what they started. They started this. They should finish it,” said Bannon, who was chief strategist to Trump during his first administration and remains a prominent ally of the US president.
“We can’t do this again. We’ll tear the country apart. We can’t have another Iraq.”
Bannon’s comments in Washington on Wednesday came as Trump weighs joining Israel in striking Iran. “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” the president told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
Bannon’s intervention laid bare a fierce public battle playing out among Trump’s most ardent supporters, with his Maga movement split over whether a president who campaigned on a message of “America first” and ending so-called forever wars should plunge the US military into another overseas conflict.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have been among the most vocal Trump acolytes calling on him to exercise restraint, while longtime foreign policy hawks, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, have rallied for military intervention.
The latest public opinion polling shows the majority of Trump supporters oppose the US striking Iran; an Economist/YouGov poll out earlier this week showed just 19 per cent backed American involvement in the war.
But the president on Wednesday afternoon dismissed suggestions that he could lose support at home over the issue. “My supporters are for me. My supporters are America first . . . my supporters don’t want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said in the Oval Office.
Bannon declined to say when he last spoke directly to Trump but said he was “pretty in sync” with the White House.
The strategist-turned-podcast host said his “recommendation” was for the president to take his time rather than rush into a decision.
“This strike does not have to happen tomorrow or the next day . . . the president should take his time and think this through with his advisers,” Bannon said, adding that Trump should also talk to regional allies, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Bannon said he thought that even as Trump weighed his military options, he remained open to a diplomatic solution. But he added the president might have run out of patience with the pace of stalled negotiations.
“There was a moment, I think he thought he was making real progress. But you can’t tap along with president Trump. He is a deal guy. Eventually he knows he is being tapped along.”
Bannon vowed to “fight” for the US to stay out of the war but said in the end, most Maga faithful would back whatever choice the president makes.
“If the president, as commander-in-chief, makes a decision to do this . . . the Maga movement, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Matt Gaetzes, we will fight it up till the end. But if he has more intelligence and makes that case to the American people, the Maga movement will support president Trump.”
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