The tragic murder of three American soldiers by Iranian proxies in Jordan has once again laid bare a fracture within the Republican Party. This fracture once again finds those who advocate for an active American role in international relations through “power projection” locked in a debate with those who believe that the U.S. should take a more isolationist approach.
Following the strike, some Republican members of Congress reacted by demanding that the U.S. strike targets in Iran and Iranian leadership directly. The opposite perspective, summarized by Tucker Carlson: “F-cking lunatics.”
While both perspectives represent the extreme, there is a growing and very vocal component of the right who believe that the best solution to American forces being killed or put in danger overseas is a complete withdrawal from the world.
They use language that creates a false equivalency between responding to an attack on Americans and “starting a war.” Sen. Mike Lee said, “I am concerned that U.S. action, like the recent airstrikes on Houthi targets, is starting to blur the line between defense of U.S. forces in the region and unauthorized escalatory offense.”
And, of course, any firm American response is criticized as placating the apparently all-powerful American military-industrial complex — a perspective more in line with progressive journalists than Reagan’s “we will not surrender for peace” foreign policy.
These critics of a forceful U.S. response seem to have forgotten Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Stick Diplomacy. Instead of a powerful and decisive defense of American interests, they demand an
