Based on reports from early 2026, the second administration of President Donald Trump has faced significant challenges and criticism regarding its Middle East policy, particularly concerning a military conflict with Iran and its handling of the Gaza conflict.
Key Developments and Criticisms in 2026:Iran War and Policy Failures: As of April 2026, critics describe the Trump administration's "war in Iran" as a "strategic failure", noting it has caused a "modern crisis of confidence" and has been likened to "geopolitical blunder". The policy relied heavily on a U.S. naval blockade and strikes, with an initial goal of regime change that was not achieved, leading instead to a "fracturing of almost all U.S. alliances globally".
Failed Diplomacy: Talks aimed at ending the Iran war in early 2026 failed, with Iran blaming the U.S. and reports indicating that after 21 hours of talks in Pakistan, no agreement was reached.
Civilian Casualties and International Law: Amnesty International documented an attack on a school in Minab, Iran, on March 16, 2026, that killed 156 people, including over 120 children. Reports indicate the administration expressed "contempt for international law" regarding civilian harm.
Economic Focus and Domestic Impact: An April 2026 poll indicated that 84% of U.S. adults wanted the administration to focus on the domestic economy rather than foreign policy, amid concerns over inflation and gas prices driven by the conflict.
Shift in Regional Alliances: The administration has been characterized as transactional, strengthening ties with autocratic leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey while sidelining traditional diplomatic processes. There has been a "decided reorientation" toward partnership and investment with the Gulf, moving away from previous U.S. policies focused on democratization.
Analysis of Strategy:Analysts have suggested that the administration's approach in 2025–2026 has been marked by a "hollowing out of the national security bureaucracy" and a "devaluation of expertise". The strategy aimed to use "maximum pressure" to achieve quick, decisive results but has instead led to a prolonged and challenging conflict. While proponents initially hoped for a quick, decisive victory, critics argue that the policy "disregarded for the Palestinian side" and "led to violence and destruction".
“President Trump made an unexpected introduction at the White House last January, directing the attention of more than a dozen oil executives to a friend -- an uncomfortable-looking man wedged between the staff seated at the back of the East Room. "Tucker Carlson is here," the president said, according to a source in the room. "He's a very famous conservative and famous WASP."
The former Fox News host is, indeed, a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. He was also once a close adviser and confidant of the president. It was the reason Trump had invited him into the Oval Office that day, where the populist firebrand sat in on a meeting to discuss plans for rebuilding the Venezuelan energy industry just days after the U.S. capture of strongman Nicolas Maduro.
Carlson opposed that conflict. And Carlson opposes the one that followed it. He is now the most prominent opponent of the Iran war and a potential problem for a president who demands total loyalty. A friendship that lasted nearly a decade, remaking the modern conservative movement in the process, seems shattered.
"I don't hate Trump. I hate this war and the direction that the U.S. government is taking," he said in an interview. "I feel betrayed."
When candidate Trump promised "no new wars," particularly foreign entanglements in the Middle East, Carlson took him both seriously and literally. In his view, the president has subsequently been captured by neoconservatives and Israel, abandoning a core tenet of his political platform.
"Why can't the U.S. government act on behalf of its own citizens?" he asked before adding, "This is a generational problem that didn't start with Trump" and concluding, "If anything, Trump just proved the system was stronger than him."
Carlson isn't without his own critics. He hosted a Holocaust denier, Nick Fuentes, on his eponymous podcast last October and accused U.S. politicians who support Israel of falling under undue foreign influence and suffering from "a brain virus." The episode elicited allegations of antisemitism and demands from some conservatives to banish Carlson from the right.
Carlson had lobbied Trump for months, both publicly and privately, against another war in the Middle East, traveling three times to the White House to meet with the president and fielding calls from him at all hours.
He failed. The exact time of the split: "February 28th," Carlson said, referring to the day the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and alienated conservatives who believed that "America First" meant no new wars.
Carlson described the man he helped make president a second time as charming, intelligent and an existential threat to self-government. "Trump has proven his own point, unfortunately, which is that the people running your government are only about themselves," he said. With rhetoric more familiar to liberal circles, he added, "You can run an authoritarian system that way. You cannot run a liberal democracy that way."
Trump faced little lasting opposition as he remade the right in his image. After dispatching the GOP old guard, his control of the party is largely complete. Carlson, the country's most popular conservative pundit, is now the face of an antiwar faction that is fracturing the MAGA movement. He is signaling that defiance, particularly when it comes to a core issue, is now acceptable. For this, Trump has called him "low IQ." Carlson replied that Trump has become "the slave" of the neoconservatives.
Now an exile in Trump World, Carlson increasingly questions MAGA and the president who launched entire America First project and then admitted, in an interview with the Atlantic last year, that he is "the one that decides" its meaning. If America First is the gut instinct of the president, instead of a set of principles, Carlson said, "then of course every decent person has to reject it because we don't worship men. We can't. That is idolatry."
Trump allies accuse Carlson of both antisemitism and opportunism. Laura Loomer has called him "mentally ill" and speculated that Carlson had been bought off by foreign powers. Mark Levin, his former Fox News colleague, dubbed him "a Marxist-Islamist leftist." Carlson rejects all the charges. "I am not pro-mullah," he quipped, "I am an Episcopalian."
The disunion became official during an episode of Carlson's podcast released last week. Joined by his brother, Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter, he told his nearly six million subscribers that he was wrestling with his conscience, predicted that he would be tormented by his support for the wartime president, and said that he wanted to say, "I'm sorry for misleading people."
The White House pushed back by noting that both of Trump's successful presidential campaigns included explicit promises to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. "Anyone who claims to be a conservative and says they regret voting for President Trump over Kamala Harris," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, "is either a fool or a fraud."
Carlson stumped for the president, then played a hand behind the scenes. It was Carlson, along with Donald Trump Jr. and the late Charlie Kirk, who together successfully lobbied Trump to pick JD Vance as his running mate.
After the U.S. bombed Iran last June to dismantle its nuclear program, Carlson and Kirk tried to convince Trump not to escalate airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities into a full-scale war. Carlson resumed that effort early this year. "Charlie was not around," Carlson said of the murdered political activist, "so I felt a moral obligation to do it myself."
The breakup occurred gradually, then suddenly. Carlson walked into the Oval Office in February, shortly after wrapping a contentious interview in Israel with U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee. A letter from the evangelist Franklin Graham was lying on the Resolute Desk. "He says you are an antisemite," the president told him, according to Carlson, who denies the charge. Trump listened as his old friend argued against another war in the Middle East. Trump didn't counter but looked "sad and resigned," according to Carlson, who said the two men haven't spoken since.” [1]
1. U.S. News: War Drives Carlson Split With Trump --- Right-wing firebrand says the Iran attack shows influence by neocons and Israel. Wegmann, Philip. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Apr 2026: A6.
Komentarų nėra:
Rašyti komentarą