Libertarians vs. Neoconservatives

War is splitting the Trumpist leadership!

by Yorgos Mitralias

To say, as we did in our previous article eloquently titled “Trump Trapped Himself,” that Trump is falling into the trap he himself created, is now a fact acknowledged by virtually all media outlets with even a modicum of seriousness. It has also become almost a cliché that Trump’s dead ends are largely due to the “unanticipated” resistance and tactical intelligence of the Tehran regime.

That said, too little attention is being paid to the ever-growing and intractable problems that Trump’s war against Iran is encountering within the United States, within his own Republican Party, and especially within the White House itself! Apart from a few rather vague references to the rifts this war is causing within the MAGA (presidential) movement, there is practically no mention of the dissension within the Trump administration and the leadership circles of Trumpism. And yet, as we shall see, these divisions not only exist but are also growing and are having a significant impact on the outcome of the war, and even on the present and, above all, the future of the Republican Party, the United States, and the entire world.

Indeed, one could say that these divisions first manifested publicly when Donald Trump’s advisor and “czar” on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, David Sacks, warned Trump to find a way out of this war as soon as possible, arguing at length against its prolongation. A prolongation of this war which, in his view, would inexorably lead to very dangerous situations, including a nuclear conflict, when an exhausted and cornered Israel would be forced to use its nuclear arsenal! (1)

The crucial importance of this stark stance lies in the person of David Sacks, the billionaire co-founder—along with Thiel—of the artificial intelligence giant Palantir which is currently guiding and coordinating the U.S. military’s strikes against Iran. And here is what was written about him and his friends in March 2025: “It is as if the demons of a past we thought had been buried continue to haunt our present (…) And above all because of the past and ideological background of those who are both the brains and the close protection detail of Trump: the triumvirate of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and David Sachs as well as their protégé, Vice-President J.D. Vance. Less well known than Musk, David Sachs has been appointed by Trump as “czar in charge of Artificial Intelligence and cryptocurrencies”, i.e. two of the most critical sectors of his administration, while Peter Thiel, who can boast of having “discovered” and sensed Trump’s potential first, ideologically trained, financed and propelled J.D. Vance onto the political scene, before imposing him as Trump’s vice-president.Obviously, the content of the professions of faith and actions of these gentlemen would be more than enough to qualify them as neo-Nazis. Moreover, they themselves strive to pose as convinced racists and supremacists and as supporters and propagandists of everything that is neofascist and especially neo-Nazi throughout the world. However, it is their shared past as white South Africans, enthusiastic supporters of apartheid and raised in circles openly nostalgic for the Third Reich, that sheds light and (…) illuminates the depth and strength of their neo-Nazi convictions” (2)

Given the ties that bind the members of this triumvirate, one can legitimately assume that David Sacks, who speaks publicly very rarely, would not have made this thunderous statement without the approval of his associates Thiel and Musk. But this would mean that Silicon Valley—represented to Trump by the Thiel-Musk-Sacks triumvirate—is also beginning to dissent. And, even more seriously, an entire wing of the Trumpist leadership, including Vice President Vance! This obviously explains Vance’s prolonged silence, which masks an opposition now confirmed by Trump himself, who has noted his vice president’s lack of enthusiasm for this war. Not to mention the recent high-profile resignation of the head of counterterrorism, the far-right extremist and white supremacist Joe Kent, who accused Trump of having been dragged into war against an Iran that “does not pose an imminent threat to the United States” by Israel and “the all-powerful Jewish lobby.”

But who are they, and what unites all these MAGA-leaning Republicans who are publicly opposing their President’s war against Iran? From Sacks to Thiel, from Joe Kent to former Fox News star Tucker Carlson and the new idol of young Republicans Nick Fuentes to Steve Bannon, most if not all are right-wing extremists or even admirers of Mussolini or the National Socialist Third Reich. Moreover, most if not all of them identify as new-wave libertarians, advocates of short wars aimed not at the “regime change” practiced in the past by American neoconservatives, but rather, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson, at “changing a regime’s behavior,” as recently practiced in Venezuela by the Trump administration.(3)

There is no doubt that the libertarian faction of Trumpism has never been very supportive of war against Iran. Moreover, several of its ultra-reactionary and deeply anti-Semitic members, such as Nick Fuentes, make no secret of their sympathies for the equally ultra-reactionary regimes of the Afghan Taliban or the Iranian Ayatollahs, with whom they share several common “sensibilities,” such as pathological misogyny. But what really set the powder keg ablaze and greatly accelerated the split within Trumpism’s leadership was the rather radical shift, over the course of just a few days, in the objectives of the war against Iran pursued by Trump: the war, initially announced as short and aimed at changing the Iranian regime’s behavior, was replaced over the course of days by the prospect of a long war, with no hope whatsoever of finding Iranian leaders willing to become the Delcy Rodriguez of an Iranian regime collaborating with Trump’s America.

So, who is to blame for this drift of Trumpism and for Trump himself? But, obviously, Netanyahu’s Israel, which has dragged Trump into a war fraught with a thousand dangers for American imperialism. [Oaklandsocialist comments here: This statement appears to be saying that Israel has dragged the US into this war. If that is what is meant, we strongly disagree because the conclusion would be that Israel is driving U.S. foreign policy. In fact, as Biden’s speech of 1986 showed, US imperialism so strongly relies on its alliance with Israel because it can find no other trustworthy ally in this important region of the world.] And again, it is Israel which, not content with having torpedoed the U.S.-Iranian negotiations in Oman by bombing Iran shortly before their successful conclusion, is now assassinating, one after another, all the Iranian leaders who could negotiate an end to the war with the United States. For the libertarians of MAGA, Israel, which will continue its war until Iran’s total destruction while flattening Lebanon under its bombs, inevitably becomes an obstacle and an adversary that jeopardizes their plan to install their protégé J.D. Vance in the White House in 2028—especially since some of them are known for their visceral anti-Semitism.

To sum up, one can only conclude that Trump’s war against Iran is just one of the ongoing wars in the Middle East. Raging alongside it is Israel’s war against Iran, a war whose objectives differ significantly from the objectives—at least the initial ones—of the American war. And also, we are witnessing the escalation of the Israeli war against Hezbollah into a war against all of Lebanon, as part of the messianic campaign to establish Greater Israel, which Trump’s unspeakable ambassador in Jerusalem fervently supports by invoking “ Israel’s biblical right to a territory stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates !”

Moreover, the Iranian regime’s war against its own people is still ongoing—undoubtedly the most brutal and deadly of them all. And then there is Tehran’s war against the microstates of the Persian Gulf, which are in the process of losing (permanently?) everything that made them artificial paradises for the privileged elites of our world.

And finally, there is a war—probably the most critical of all—beginning to loom on the horizon: that of the libertarians against the American neoconservatives, which is undoubtedly destined to weigh heavily on the present and future not only of Trumpism but also of the global right and far right. In the meantime, of course, we await the emergence of a radical mass movement of the American people, which will sweep away both neoconservatives and libertarians, as well as all those who finance and support them tooth and nail, to the detriment of humanity and our planet…

Oaklandsocialist comments: We always welcome the contributions of Yorgos Mitralias, including when we see things somewhat differently. Our view, which we discussed when we discussed the likelihood that Trump would send ground troops into Iran, is that MAGA is composed of two main wings. One is the corporate wing as represented by the Wall St. Journal editorial board. We cited several editorials of theirs warning Trump not to end the war too quickly. Of course, there are divisions within the capitalist class, and the majority of them oppose this disastrous adventure, which Trump undertook for a couple of main reasons. First, he wanted to assert his dominance in the region, which he thinks would bolster him at home. Short-sighted narcissicist that he is, he thought that it would be as easy as his little adventure in Venezuela. He also wants to distract attention away from the Trump-Epstein scandal. The main Republican opposition comes from the far right Nazi-sympathizing and outright Nazi populists. Kemp is an example of that crowd, as is Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and Marjorie Taylor Greene. This crowd resembles the Strasserites of Germany’s Nazi Party and is deeply anti-Semitic. For them, Israel represents “the Jews” and they never fail to find an excuse to attack Israel, with the understandingof their supporters that this is a dog whistle for attacking “the Jews”. See, for example, this article debunking the anti-Semitic claim that Epstein was simply a Mossad agent, and also this article on the growing danger of anti-Semitism. Both of those articles make clear that this has nothing to do with the lie that opposition to Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic. 

Notes

1. David Sacks: This Is A Good Time To Declare Victory And Get Out of Iran : https://www.realclearpolitics.

2. No illusions, Like the good fascists they are, Trump and his friends will violate international law and all established rules!: https://

3. On this subject, Gilbert Achcar’s excellent article: US: an old-new imperial doctrine: https://mondediplo.com/2026/