How Is Marjorie Taylor Greene the Most Principled Voice in MAGA’s Iran Debate?

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

Following President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend, the fault lines inside MAGA have deepened.  The most surprising political development is that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is showing she might be the most principled figure on the America First side of this fight.

Let’s back up: Trump’s aggressive strike delighted the interventionist wing of the Republican Party — the hawks who’ve long pushed him to flex American muscle abroad. But the America First faction, who backed Trump in 2024 in part because he pledged to get the United States out of foreign wars, naturally recoiled at the prospect of entangling the U.S. in another Middle East quagmire, especially one with nuclear stakes. In this fraught political environment, Greene has walked a surprisingly principled line.

And Greene — notorious for pushing batshit crazy conspiracies and spending her time in Congress performing the most trollish partisan behavior imaginable — deserves credit for it.

Since the B2 bombers released their payload onto three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Greene has been one of the loudest — and most consistent — voices sounding the alarm about the risks of the conflict spiraling into all-out war. That stance is hardly new for her; it goes back to her vocal opposition to blank-check aid for Ukraine.

What’s new is that this time, her stance puts her on the opposite side of Trump, a man few, if any, prominent members (you might at this point call them survivors) dare to defy. So far, she has done so in a manner that has not elicited an attack from Trump — at least not yet.

Thomas Massie has been less fortunate. His intense criticism of what he described as an unconstitutional military attack so angered the president that Trump lashed out in a Sunday Truth Social post attacking the Republican congressman, then doubled down on Monday with an ALL CAPS screed that read “GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!”

Greene, by contrast, has couched her anti-war message in language that feels emotionally resonant to the Trump faithful, and more importantly, Trump himself.

“I can also support President Trump and his great administration on many of the great things they are doing while disagreeing on bombing Iran and getting involved in a hot war that Israel started,” she wrote on X, later adding “But we cannot risk losing American lives or dragging ourselves into World War III.”

Taylor Greene’s surprisingly subtle but vital distinctions here could preserve the crucial bond she has with the MAGA base.

Her comments have invited intense criticism from Mark Levin, the most feverishly pro-Israel interventionist of MAGA coalition, and she has not shied away from hitting back. But Levin is just a media figure, and she seems to care little about catching strays from that skirmish as long as Trump isn’t upset.

Throughout MAGA’s history, Trump’s most ardent supporters — Greene included — have embraced him for specific principles, especially his stated opposition to regime-change wars. The trouble is that most of those supporters drop these principles the moment Trump does. Issues that were once taken as MAGA gospel vanish from the lips of Charlie Kirk as soon as Trump himself pivots. In this second-term version of Trumpism, the GOP’s only consistent position is whatever Trump most recently posted on Truth Social. What matters to most elected Republicans is whatever the last contradictory position Trump took.

That’s what makes Greene’s principled stance on the Iran strikes is so surprising — particularly as it comes from one of his most feverishly devoted supporters in Congress. I mean, this is a woman who wears a bright red MAGA hat to the State of the Union.

For maybe the first time in MAGA history, someone has actually held firm on their principles even as Trump shifted gears. The fact that it’s Greene, of all people, who hasn’t caved? That’s truly shocking.

Whether MAGA voters take her words to heart is one thing. But Greene deserves credit for showing that, in this tense chapter of Trump’s influence, you can question the march toward war without losing your seat at the MAGA table. In the landscape of MAGA sycophants and fair-weather patriots, that’s as close to principled as it gets.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.