MAGA is in a muddle about Iranian missiles.
Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall tripped over the party line live on CNN’s The Source With Kaitlan Collins when the host asked him if he thought Iran had a right to defend itself.
The U.S. has struck a deal with Iran to end the four-month conflict, and messaging from Republicans suggests a willingness to allow it to defend itself, despite the destruction of missile capabilities being one of the primary motives for the attack in the first place.
Trump’s deal with Iran has come under scrutiny for appearing to give several concessions that seemed implausible when the fighting began. Among them are possible missile allowances, which are at odds with the messaging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed in early March as the first bombs were falling.
“The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused,” he said in a press briefing at the Pentagon on March 2. ”Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons.”
He continued: “Our ambitions are not utopian; they are realistic, scoped to our interests and the defense of our people and our allies.
“This is not Iraq. This is not endless… This is the opposite. This operation [has] a clear, devastating, decisive mission: destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.”
That is some way from what Marshall said when Collins asked him whether he was OK with Iran having missiles.
“You know, I’m hesitating,” he said. “I’d prefer that they not. I certainly don’t want them to have long-distance missiles. I don’t want them to have nuclear-armed missiles.
“I would prefer they didn’t, but I don’t think that’s the key issue here. I think that they have to be able to defend themselves and, and I just come back to the big picture here is that the Middle East countries like this agreement.”
The U.S. has said time and time again that Iran cannot ever have a nuclear weapon. Pushed harder on whether it has the right to defend itself, however, Marshall said, “I think that they have to be able to defend themselves. Otherwise, we turn this into a forever war.
“You’re never going to get them—short of boots on the ground—surrendering everything, an unconditional agreement, if you will.
“But again, what I’m getting at here is this agreement has the support of all the— most of the countries in the Middle East, and I think that’s going to give us more of a long-lasting relationship, a long-lasting success as well.”
His words echo those of President Trump, who said in Paris on Wednesday, “I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some.”
He added that “If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say, in relative proportion, I think it’s OK.”
Marshall’s eagerness to align with Trump has exposed him to mockery.
MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski said, “This guy will say whatever Trump says on any given day. He has no core beliefs. His political philosophy is whatever position Trump takes today, which may be different from the position Trump had yesterday.”
Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior research analyst Max Meizlish said on X, “So America’s adversaries need to be able to defend themselves against America for America’s sake? Got it. Nothing to see here. Nothing weird going on at all.”
