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Matt Gaetz, the former congressman and Donald Trump’s first choice for attorney general, claims that Israel is trying to coax the U.S. into entering a regime-change war in the Middle East. Many who rally under the America-First banner, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), agree with him, although President Trump has stated in no uncertain terms that “AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Greene then added that Israel attacked Iran first; she appears unaware of or indifferent to the fact that Hamas, which began the conflict by brutally murdering 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, is a proxy of Iran, as are Hezbollah and the Houthis, the other principal groups waging jihad against Israel today.
One notable omission in Gaetz’s presentation was that far from departing from his America-First principles, Trump has been consistent for ten years about his determination to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. In his very first speech as a politician, announcing his candidacy for president on June 16, 2015, Trump said: “I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”
Gaetz likewise ignored the fact that it isn’t just Netanyahu who claims that Iran is trying to get nuclear weapons. In a May 31, 2025 report, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stated that “the significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear-weapon State to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern.”
The IAEA report also lamented the fact that Iran had stopped the IAEA from all of its monitoring activities inside the country. Why would a country that had nothing to hide and wasn’t developing nuclear weapons behave in such a manner, when it doesn’t take much thought to realize that this caginess only arouses suspicion that could get it embroiled in a global conflict?
The UN is no friend of Israel; item 7 of the UN Human Rights Council’s every meeting agenda focuses on the Jewish state’s alleged abuse of Palestinian Arabs. Why would an organization that is so hostile to Israel have its nuclear watchdog repeat propaganda favorable to Israel? It’s much more likely that the Iranian regime really is working toward getting nuclear weapons. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that Iran’s nuclear program was an “existential threat” not just to Israel, but to Europe as well.
On Sept. 23, 2015, two months after the Obama nuclear deal was finalized, Khamenei published an article entitled “The Idols Will Be Shattered,” illustrated with a drawing of the Statue of Liberty shattered in pieces. In it, he declared, “The idol of the soul, the idol of pride, [and] the idol of sexual lust; the idol of tyranny and subservience; the idol of global tyranny [that is, the U.S.]; the idol of sloth and irresponsibility; and the other idols that shame the precious human soul—a plan that will spring forth from the depths of the heart will shatter them.”