Bannon warns regime change could lead to US military in Iran
Steve Bannon expressed his disapproval on Monday with the possibility of the U.S. pushing for regime change in Iran — an outcome President Donald Trump floated over the weekend — while reiterating his desire to prioritize “America first” and stay out of foreign conflicts.
Bannon, the longtime Trump ally and leading figure in the MAGA movement, praised Trump for the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities during an episode of his podcast “Bannon’s War Room.” But he questioned the “regime change narrative,” criticized the Pentagon for its messaging in the hours after the strike and urged Israel to “finish what you started” without U.S. involvement.
Trump indicated he’d be open to seeing out regime change in Iran in a social media post Sunday evening, contradicting several senior administration officials who had insisted earlier in the day that regime change was not a goal.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
The conflict in Iran has opened a rift with the GOP between interventionists like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and isolationists like Bannon, who argue against the U.S. entering an open-ended conflict in the Middle East.
Bannon congratulated Trump on the “precision, logistics, bravery, valor, boldness” of the Iran strike, but warned a lack of clarity on whether the strike was successful could create a pretext for the U.S. to send military personnel to Iran.
“Now it’s all about, ‘Hey, we don’t know where the material is,’” Bannon said of the enriched uranium stockpile in Iran. “What’s that going to lead us to, folks? ‘Hey, do we need the 75th Ranger Battalion to go in and find it?’ Oh, it’s coming. It’s coming.”
Trump has repeatedly called the strike “very successful,” but Pentagon officials on Sunday said it’s too soon to know if Iran still retains nuclear capabilities, and the extent to which Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was destroyed remains unclear.
Bannon voiced concern that the Iran strike was a “psy-op” and that the Trump administration’s stated goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was “cosplay” that could lead to further U.S. involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.
“Is this because the ultimate goal is regime change? And if that’s fine, Israelis, have at it,” he said. “If you want regime change, go for it, baby. Just no participation by the United States government.”
Bannon said he was “disappointed” by Pentagon leadership for losing the opportunity to “drive the narrative” around the strikes by not presenting an initial damage assessment on Sunday after the attack.
“We needed to see some grainy photographs,” he said. “I understand DOD that you don’t have the battle damage assessment. That’s going to take three or four weeks, as you said, but there’s enough there to kind of take and start to drive the narrative. We lost that opportunity.”