And despite the acclaim for the Iran strike from many Republicans — polls showed better than 80 percent support from GOP voters — some sources say the restrainers retain the upper hand, at least for now. “I can’t overemphasize this enough: There are not a lot of very hawkish voices inside the administration,” said another defense expert familiar with the thinking inside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon as well as the White House, who was granted anonymity to avoid retribution.
“It’s not an evenly matched fight. Ever since the departure of [former National Security Adviser] Mike Waltz, there hasn’t been a large faction of more hawkish voices concentrated in one place in the administration. There are people here and there, but not at the level you think,” he said. “Even [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio is a lot different than he was six-seven years ago, when he was very hawkish.”
Waltz, arguably the most prominent representative of the older neocon wing of the party, was ousted from the White House on May 1 and nominated to be U.N. ambassador. On June 12, after Israel began strikes on Iran, Rubio at first fought to distance the administration, saying, “We are not involved.”