The watchword is: realign. In the face of the US attack on Iran , the leading exponents of MAGA are repositioning themselves alongside Donald Trump. The movement has always fought for America First, for America's disengagement from the world, for the end of the strategy that saw the US as the guarantor of international balances. With the bombing of the nuclear sites of Tehran, Trump is disregarding these positions. Reactions vary: from open disappointment to the hope that the military operation will stop here to support for the president's war. The prevailing attitude is precisely this: support for Trump, whose charisma remains for now unshakeable among US conservatives. Opposition to the bombings on Tehran remains, at this time, the prerogative of many democrats, who denounce the choice of war without going through Congress as illegal.

“Iran gave President Trump no choice,” wrote Charlie Kirk, a conservative podcaster and activist who is one of the most vocal critics of neoconservative Republican policies on the right, on X. “For a decade, Trump has been crystal clear that Iran must never have nuclear weapons. Iran has decided to forgo diplomacy and go after the bomb. This is a surgical strike, executed to perfection. President Trump has acted prudently and decisively.” Many MAGA activists insist on precisely this: the limits of the military operation, the decidedly “surgical” nature of the intervention that will never, ever, extend to a conflict like Iraq, which bears no resemblance to one of those “endless wars” into which the neoconservatives have recklessly plunged America.

“Trump wants his operation to be substantially similar to Soleimani’s,” writes Matt Gaetz, a former Florida congressman who the president had chosen as attorney general and who was later forced to retire amid a sex scandal, on X. The reference to Iranian general Qasem Soleimani is meant to portray the attack on Iran’s nuclear sites as a “one-and-done.” “No war to change the regime. Trump is the peacemaker!,” Gaetz adds. Along the same lines is another standard-bearer of MAGA conservatism, commentator (and frequent supporter of conspiratorial and white supremacist positions) Jack Posobiec who writes: “President Trump has clearly signaled, as he always has, his opposition to a war for regime change in Iran. His target is the Iranian nuclear program that he has promised to end from day one.” Posobiec, moreover, is the one who just a few days ago claimed that going to war with Israel would “disastrously divide” conservatives.

So we try to make the best of a bad situation. We put aside doubts and past anti-interventionist passions so as not to harm the president. In the end, one might say, Steve Bannon, one of the most famous and controversial voices of Trumpism, was right when a few days ago, at an event organized by The Christian Science Monitor, he said: “We don’t like it. Even more, we hate the idea of war. But, in the end, we will get on board too”. There is no doubt, however, that the intervention in Iran destabilizes a part of that world that believed in America First. During the night, after the announcement of military intervention against Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan, one of the trends on X – which the Trumpian people were debating and getting heated about – was “WWIII”, therefore the possibility of World War III. Truth Social, Trump’s platform, was so popular that it experienced several interruptions to its service. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative from Georgia, one of the most unbridled and uncontrollable voices of Trumpism, expressed her opposition to the war, saying that “America First is what millions of Americans voted for”, alluding to one of the fears that are currently gripping the US intelligence community itself: “We pray that we are not attacked by terrorists”.

It is not yet, obviously, a civil war among the MAGA conservatives. It is not a real questioning of the choices of the president, who for his people remains a sort of miracle-working king, the man capable of solving everything thanks to political virtues and infallible instinct. It is certain, however, that in these hours a strong restlessness is emerging in important sectors of the conservatives, a feeling of unease in justifying the choice that disregards what Trump has professed for years. We are witnessing the same attitude to return - laboriously - to the ranks among those G.O.P. deputies and senators who in recent days have expressed doubts about the attack and who now prefer to put aside possible objections. Among these is the senator from Montana, Tim Sheehy, who only two days ago had said"wars are chaotic. They are long and unclear. Rarely can a single action decree the end of a conflict". Now he explains: “To the naysayers out there, this is not the beginning of a war, it is the end of one. Iran has been at war with America for 46 years. The Iranian people should rise up and end this murderous regime.”

With the Republican leadership aligned without ifs and buts with the president - the bombs were"the right signal" and "the Iranian regime deserves it", says Lindsay Graham, traditionally one of the most resolute Republican"hawks" - it is therefore up to the Democrats to express doubts and criticisms towards the military operation. Most of the attacks focus on the illegality of Trump's action which did not pass through Congress as required by the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973, at the time of the war in Vietnam, to subordinate the war powers of presidents to parliamentary authorization. The fact is that, after the attacks of September 11, Congress itself approved the Authorization for Use of Military Force, a set of laws that gives presidents the ability to act militarily and without the green light of senators and representatives. These are the laws that all US presidents have invoked in military actions in recent years. And it is to these laws that Trump and his followers are clinging today to support the legitimacy of military action against Iran. These are positions that do not convince many Democrats. Senator Christopher Van Hollen states that"Trump's actions are a clear violation of our Constitution, as they ignore the rule according to which only Congress has the authority to declare war". Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative from New York, is calling for Trump's impeachment, while others, like Senator from Rhode Island Jack Reed, are clearly expressing the fear of many in Washington, that of a new “ endless war ”. “It's easier to start a war than to end one,” says Reed.