San Francisco native Tucker Carlson is celebrating the demise of the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. Just kidding. He’s actually having conniptions. As a (the?) principal voice of the growing “woke right,” Carlson preaches blissfully ignoring global threats, especially if Israel factors into the equation, while sanctimoniously attacking anyone who realizes it’s a cruel world out there, filled with evil actors waiting to attack. Remember 9/11? Remember when Iran orchestrated slaughtering 241 Americans in Beirut in 1983, or hundreds of American deaths in Iraq? When Iran promised death to America, it wasn't bluffing. They take jihad seriously.
Consider Carlson’s June 13 absurdity:
The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it -- between warmongers and peacemakers. Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran. On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.
Carlson's calculus includes only “warmongers and peacemakers.” We would still be paying taxes to London if similar logic prevented Washington doing his thing. John F. Kerry or Justin Trudeau could have written the statement above. “[T]hose who casually encourage violence” included Thomas Jefferson. He tired of paying protection to Barbary states (role models for Houthis), lest they seize and enslave our ships and sailors. Thus began America’s first offshore war. Warmongers include Jefferson’s successor, James Madison, who prosecuted our second foreign war against the same enemy. What did the authors of America's foundational covenants know that Carlson doesn’t?
Carlson didn’t label Trump a warmonger, merely a gullible vessel, available to be filled with aggressive thoughts from others. The evil ones are those who plant ideas in Trump’s innocent head. Carlson knows he’d lose his audience by directly attacking Trump. He tangentially targets those allegedly manipulating Trump. News flash: Trump actually has self-agency, focused on ensuring America’s safety far into the future. Carlson obsessed for months over the possibility of eradicating the Iranian threat. On April 7 he warned that if we engaged with those vowing to destroy us it would be “suicidal. Anyone advocating for conflict with Iran is not an ally of the United States, but an enemy.” Which would include Trump. Where was Carlson when Trump bombed the Houthis into submission? Doesn’t that fit his definition of warmongering? Not if Israel isn’t involved.
Carlson would be an irrelevant crank except for his vast audience -- which makes him dangerous. He’s not alone in an antipathy toward Israel. There’s an adjective describing similar thinking, “European.” The Right is on the cusp of an overdue purge. Trump just put the woke Right on notice. “For those people who say they want peace -- you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon -- that's not peace.” “Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, very simple. Regardless, Israel or not Israel, Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb.” Mark Levin is also piling on, equating isolationism with appeasement. A day into Israel’s Iranian attack, Carlson experienced a Three-Mile-Island level meltdown. Trump is now “complicit.” Preemptive war is often the superior option, rather than ignoring reality.
Carlson is hardly an outlier among the woke Right and leftist fellow travelers. Andrew Napolitano, after his firing from Fox for indiscretions, hosts an online salon, featuring a daily stream of uber isolationists from the Left and Right. These include leftists such as Jeffrey Sachs and conservatives such as Douglas Macgregor. According to Macgregor, “The talks with Iran were a ruse. Witkoff, like much of Trump’s team, was acting in Israel’s interest. This is the start of a regional war.” What if Israel’s and America’s interests coincide? Macgregor’s antipathy toward Israel yielded ludicrous prognostications.
Too many on the Right absorbed wrong lessons from the neocons’ wars of recent years. Not all foreign interventions are negative. Neocons gained that tag because they were disaffected Democrats who couldn’t gain traction for their belligerence in their original party. Many were simply carrying the arms industry’s portfolio. The woke Right opposes any use of force, begging the question of what is the world’s most powerful military for?
Napolitano’s chorus preaches the gospel of a belligerent Israel, no bigger than New Jersey, intent upon establishing a “greater Israel.” They avoid directly criticizing Trump -- it’s always others planting ideas in his innocent, naive mind who are the villains. He’s just getting “bad advice.” Napolitano’s guests all agree: America is in decline. This sentiment, intermittent for decades, becomes increasingly invalid as Trump proves it wrong and ridiculous. As a child, his pastor was Norman Vincent Peale, who infected him with the gospel of optimism. Pessimism is self-defeating, clouding objectivity. Trump is all about winning. His critics share an affliction with pessimism. What can't be, rather than what could be. Carlson’s variant appears pathological. What changed?
Surviving Iranian leaders opt to join Assad in Moscow in seeking asylum, rather than learning whether 72 (or any) virgins await. A stunning list of nations assisted Israel in deflecting Iranian missiles, this year and in 2024, including the USA, Qatar, Syria, UK, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Turkey, Italy, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. This coalition results from Trump’s 2017 and 2025 Middle Eastern visits and intervening diplomatic initiatives. Iranians celebrate in the streets and praise Israel as the inevitable approaches. Trump perceived the obvious, which eluded his predecessors. Iran had far more enemies than its funded allies.
Meanwhile, in Yemen where Houthi rebels foolishly fired a single missile into Israel, Israel is addressing that issue.
Back in Washington, Your Favorite President is busy producing imperial pageantry to consolidate MAGA forces, preparing for the penultimate battle: the 2026 midterms. An election Democrats (consumed by nihilism) are desperately trying to lose. Easy solutions exist for their theatrics. Trump will go all out for the semiquincentennial next year.
The past six months have been eventful. Regime change in Syria. Gaza’s leadership is mostly gone. Ditto for Hezb’allah. Russia and China are in decline. Rosie O’Donnell self-deported. Trump’s Middle Eastern tour yielded trillions in investments, bringing Gulf Arabs closer to America, invested in our success. The China trade deal will steadily degrade our leading adversary. Bringing together Korean leaders was a prelude to accomplishing the same in the Middle East. Trump has an easy sale with foreign leaders: profits are preferable to war. This realization is slowly dawning on the Chinese too. Like Iran, China’s friends are evaporating.
The 20th century was history’s bloodiest. 200 million or more perished from wars and famines. The world now enjoys a food surplus. A generation into the new millennium, it's overdue to give peace a chance.
Douglas Schwartz blogs on history and gaslighting at The Great Class War.
Image: AT via Magic Studio