Trump's Risky Iran Bet Aims For Political Dividends At Home

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In Trump's second term, his MAGA base has been a bit more divided than in his first. On the issue of tariffs, key Republican senators begged him to backpedal, due to concerns that the new tariffs would be catastrophic for the US economy – improving the economy having been one of the issues that propelled him to victory. Yet he went ahead with the tariffs anyway, as some members of his base were in support.

With the Middle East crisis, Trump supporters appeared to be mostly against the US getting involved in a foreign conflict. “No more wars” is a common slogan on the campaign trail.

In the lead-up to the US strikes, key leaders in the MAGA movement criticized the idea of the US getting involved in the conflict. Right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson told hawkish Senator Ted Cruz that Cruz should know far more about the regime that the senator wanted to topple. Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green also called for the US to stay out of the conflict.

Before the attacks, a YouGov poll showed that 60% of Americans did not want the US to get involved in the conflict, which has since increased to 80% . However when asked more specifically about support for US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, as many as 94% of MAGA Republicans gave their approval.

Is there voter backing?

Trump also believes he can sell the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as a huge win, making good on his promise to eradicate Iran's nuclear programme. The US intelligence community takes a different view of their efficacy , but Trump has rejected this.

Trump took an early victory lap, claiming that Iran's nuclear programme had been “completely destroyed.” It was arguably comparable to George W Bush's “mission accomplished” announcement in May 2003, after Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was ousted by US-led forces.

Bush's approval ratings were as high as 70% in the immediate aftermath, but had plunged by 40 points by 2008 after five years of fighting the Iraqi insurgency that emerged in Hussein's absence.

Trump seems to be revelling in taking more risks and being more unpredictable. As he has become increasingly bold in his second term, he has been more willing to test the loyalty of his base when they don't agree with his instincts. Though the isolationist wing of Maga has been critical, Trump assumes that his base will unite and rally around him.

Trump was more careful not to betray his base in his first term. Trump had ordered strikes on Iran in 2019, but backed down at the last minute. But now he has gone so far as to suggest the door may be open to regime change in Tehran .