Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: Conflict Breaks Out within Trump Team Over a Possible Stupid War with Iran

By John Zmirak Published on April 18, 2025

A blessed Good Friday to all of you!

As followers of Christ, we ought to be marking today by standing at the foot of the Cross, remembering our own responsibility for Jesus’s death, which He willingly accepted to atone for our sins. Let us try to imagine how His mother and faithful apostles must have experienced His death, perhaps without a clear understanding of the promise that He would rise again. Maybe spend the next day imagining their desolation and doubt, even as we wait to commemorate His victory over death and sin. As the ancient Byzantine prayer puts it:

Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and upon those in the tombs
bestowing life!

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Remember how all the experts told us during the last Bush administration that invading Iraq would be quick, easy, and painless — even profitable, since oil revenues would more than cover the cost of the war? They promised us that a tolerant, multireligious, pro-American democracy would replace Saddam Hussein’s hostile regime and help transform the whole region, making Israel safe.

How’d that work out? Three trillion dollars and thousands of dead American troops (plus 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians) later, what do we have in Iraq? A puppet of Iran, ethnically cleansed of Christians.

Recall the people who told us that Afghanistan was full of people yearning for basic freedoms and participatory democracy, plus education and empowerment for women? All it needed was a little push, which the U.S. could accomplish in a year or so while hunting down Osama bin Laden and dismantling the Taliban. After an occupation of 20 years, Joe Biden surrendered in the most abject manner possible, and the Taliban took right over again.

Now an Afghanistan enriched by some $90 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons has resumed its military alliance with China, signed on September 11, 2001.

The same geniuses who blew all that smoke at us are now insisting that we wage a short, decisive war with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Most of those people also oppose most of what President Donald Trump wants to achieve in office, such as repatriating millions of illegal aliens and restoring U.S. manufacturing. But they would like to use Trump to accomplish their military goal of disarming Iran. If by making war Trump frittered away the rest of his presidency the way George W. Bush did, that would just be a little bonus.

Axios reports that there’s a power struggle inside the Trump administration over how to proceed on Iran:

President Trump has vowed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — but inside his national security team there’s a divide over the best way to do it.

Why it matters: This isn’t a theoretical debate. Trump has dispatched negotiators to try to get a deal, and B-2 bombers and aircraft carriers for plan b. …

Behind the scenes: One camp, unofficially led by Vice President Vance, believes a diplomatic solution is both preferable and possible and that the U.S. should be ready to make compromises in order to make it happen. Vance is highly involved in the Iran policy discussions, another U.S. official said.

  • This camp includes Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff — who represented the U.S. at the first round of Iran talks on Saturday — and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. It also gets outside support from MAGA influencer and Trump whisperer Tucker Carlson.
  • This group is concerned that striking Iran’s nuclear facilities would put U.S. soldiers in the region in harm’s way when Iran strikes back.
  • They also argue a new conflict in the region would send oil prices skyrocketing at a sensitive time for the U.S. economy.

The other side: The other camp, which includes national security adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is highly suspicious of Iran and extremely skeptical of the chances of a deal that significantly rolls back Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. officials say.

It seems there’s a fierce internal struggle within the Trump team over which solution — diplomatic or military — the U.S. will end up adopting. Some scalps are getting taken:

If you value what the president is trying to accomplish inside our country, pray hard that some peaceful resolution is found. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

For an update on how Christians are doing in the new Iraq that the Bush administration produced, check out the latest episode of The Jason Jones Show, in which he interviews human rights activist Nadene Maenza on the “last stand” of Iraqi Christians.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

God Bless Marco Rubio, Who Shut Down the Deep State’s Propaganda Machine

I take back everything I said about Marco Rubio during the 2016 campaign. He’s doing a vital patriotic service right now as Secretary of State, dismantling the intelligence community’s censorship and domestic propaganda apparatus. Revolver News reports:

For years now, the left has weaponized the word “disinformation” — not as some shield for truth, but as a sword against political dissent. It became their catch-all excuse to silence opposition, throttle free speech, and label anything that didn’t fit their agenda as dangerous or false or a conspiracy theory.

And at the very center of that push was Richard Stengel, a man who proudly called himself the “chief propagandist” while he dutifully served under Obama as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy.

Stengel’s role wasn’t some symbolic title. This man helped lay the foundation for what became a sprawling censorship machine inside the US government — a fine-oiled machine that worked hand-in-hand with social media giants, NGOs, and international “partners” to shape public opinion and silence what they couldn’t control.

The State Department just shut down the last remaining piece of the government’s censorship apparatus. All staff at the Global Engagement Center’s (GEC) R-FIMI were put on leave, 50 positions were eliminated, and Congress was notified that the program is over. That includes the termination of $65 million in funding.

It’s done.

Trump doesn’t think the government’s job is to take taxpayer money and use it to reeducate citizens to agree with the spies and spooks who run the CIA, and censor them if they refuse. Neither does Rubio. This is one more reform to be thankful for.

A Racially Divisive Killing in Texas

The hideous slaying of Austin Metcalf keeps getting more grotesque. Metcalf, 17, is the white Texas student who asked 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony, a black teen from another school, to leave his team’s tent at a track meet in Frisco on April 2. Anthony allegedly stabbed Metcalf in the heart, after which Metcalf died in his twin brother’s arms. In a well-intended TV appearance, Austin’s father, Jeff Metcalf, offered forgiveness to the unrepentant Anthony.

Subsquently, the Anthony family has engaged in a fundraising blitz via social media for “legal defense,” apparently using the $400,000 raised so far to purchase a new home and car. Meanwhile, Anthony has been released on bail, and will not be charged as an adult. His online supporters are using charged racial rhetoric, claiming that he stabbed Metcalf in self-defense because Metcalf allegedly “touched” him.

This ugly spectacle just got even worse. Yesterday, Anthony’s parents held a press conference, which Jeff Metcalf showed up to watch. Dallas police were called and escorted him out of the public event; it is unclear why.

Dominque Alexander, who has an interesting legal background and is serving as the spokesperson for the accused killer’s parents, denounced Metcalf’s apparent “disrespect,” evidenced by showing his face at the event.

Meanwhile, Anthony’s family is now selling T-shirts and other items to support their son’s legal case.

If this isn’t an instance of some black Americans rallying around a violent teen who killed a white teen on the slightest provocation, acting out of a sinful tribalism which would shock us all if white people acted that way, what exactly are we witnessing? It’s no better, and possibly worse, than young women fawning over Luigi Mangioni, who is on trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December, because they think he’s “cute.”

Pray for Florida

Fox News has a heartbreaking report:

Two people were killed, and six others were injured, in a shooting at Florida State University (FSU) on Thursday in Tallahassee, authorities said. 

The shooting began at around 11:50 a.m. During a press conference later that afternoon, authorities identified the suspected shooter as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, a student at the school. 

Ikner was taken to an area hospital after being “neutralized” by authorities. Police also said his mother is a sheriff’s deputy with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, and said Ikner used his mother’s weapon in the killing. 

Please pray for the victims and their families this Easter weekend. President Trump offered a sober response, cutting off those who’d politicize this wicked attack:

Along The Stream…

Later this morning, Rabbi Jason Sobel, host of TBN’s Mysteries of Messiah, unpacks why the Passover is still significant for Christians today.

Don’t miss pastor Shane Idleman’s powerful Holy Week message, “Preparing to Meet the King.”

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.