Loathsome Assholes Collide— No, Not Trump And Elon This Time— MAGA’s Civil War Over War With Iran

Mark Levin vs Tucker Carlson

You may be wondering why Hate Talk radio icon Mark Levin, a loathsome ass who is increasingly unhinged and pathetic, called Tucker Carlson a “loathsome ass who is increasingly unhinged and pathetic.” Levin is correct, of course, and his reason for the freak-out was a reaction to a very long Tweet by Tucker that has been viewed by over 6 million people:

Mark Levin was at the White House today, lobbying for war with Iran. To be clear, Levin has no plans to fight in this or any other war. He’s demanding that American troops do it. We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, he and likeminded ideologues in Washington are now arguing. They’re just weeks away.

If this sounds familiar, it's because the same people have been making the same claim since at least the 1990s. It’s a lie. In fact, there is zero credible intelligence that suggests Iran is anywhere near building a bomb, or has plans to. None. Anyone who claims otherwise is ignorant or dishonest. If the US government knew Iran was weeks from possessing a nuclear weapon, we’d be at war already.

Iran knows this, which is why they aren’t building one. Iran also knows it’s unwise to give up its weapons program entirely. Muammar Gaddafi tried that and wound up sodomized with a bayonet. As soon as Gaddafi disarmed, NATO killed him. Iran’s leaders saw that happen. They learned the obvious lesson.

So why is Mark Levin once again hyperventilating about weapons of mass destruction? To distract you from the real goal, which is regime change — young Americans heading back to the Middle East to topple yet another government. Virtually no one will say this out loud. America’s record of overthrowing foreign leaders is so embarrassingly counterproductive that regime change has become a synonym for disaster. Officially, no one supports it. So instead of telling the truth about their motives, they manufacture hysteria: “A country like Iran can never have the bomb! They’ll nuke Los Angeles! We have to act now!”

They don’t really mean this, and you can tell they don’t by what they omit. At least two of Iran’s neighbors — both Islamic nations — already have nuclear weapons. That fact should scare the hell out of Mark Levin. Yet for some reason he never mentions it. How come? Because it’s not the weapons he hates. It’s the ideology of the Iranian government, which is why he’s lobbying to overthrow it.

It goes without saying that there are very few Trump voters who’d support a regime change war in Iran. Donald Trump has argued loudly against reckless lunacy like this. Trump ran for president as a peace candidate. That’s what made him different from conventional Republicans. It’s why he won. A war with Iran would amount to a profound betrayal of his supporters. It would end his presidency. That may explain why so many of Trump’s enemies are advocating for it.

And then there’s the question of the war itself. Iran may not have nukes, but it has a fearsome arsenal of ballistic missiles, many of which are aimed at US military installations in the Gulf, as well as at our allies and at critical energy infrastructure. The first week of a war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans. It could also collapse our economy, as surging oil prices trigger unmanageable inflation. Consider the effects of $30 gasoline.

But the second week of the war could be even worse. Iran isn’t Iraq or Libya, or even North Korea. While it’s often described as a rogue state, Iran has powerful allies. It’s now part of a global bloc called BRICS, which represents the majority of the world’s landmass, population, economy and military power. Iran has extensive military ties with Russia. It sells the overwhelming majority of its oil exports to China. Iran isn’t alone. An attack on Iran could very easily become a world war. We’d lose.

None of these are far fetched predictions. Most of them comport with the Pentagon’s own estimates: many Americans would die during a war with Iran. People like Mark Levin don’t seem to care about this. It’s not relevant to them. Instead they insist that Iran give up all uranium enrichment, regardless of its purpose. They know perfectly well that Iran will never accept that demand. They’ll fight first. And of course that’s the whole point of pushing for it: to box the Trump administration into a regime change war in Iran.

The one thing that people like Mark Levin don’t want is a peaceful solution to the problem of Iran, despite the obvious benefits to the United States. They denounce anyone who advocates for a deal as a traitor and a bigot. They tell us with a straight face that Long Island native Steve Witkoff is a secret tool of Islamic monarchies. They’ll say or do whatever it takes. They have no limits. These are scary people. Pray that Donald Trump ignores them.

Coming in the midst of the feud between Elmo and Señor TACO, the Carlson vs Levin dustup has gotten less coverage outside of the confines of the MAGAverse than it deserves. There’s a civil war bubbling under the surface about something far more dangerous than a bruised tech bro ego— it’s about war with Iran. And this time, the knives are out between two of the most high-profile hate-talk idols on America’s far right: Levin and Carlson. Basically, the same Levin who helped shape the paranoid, jingoistic, anti-Muslim rhetoric of post-9/11 conservatism, who spent years howling for war with Iran from his radio throne— that Mark Levin— is now being called “a loathsome ass who is increasingly unhinged and pathetic” by… Tucker Carlson. And for once, no notes!

Carlson’s tweet launched a scathing takedown of Levin's warmongering, exposing the hollow logic and grotesque double standards of the “Bomb Iran” brigade. Tucker’s not wrong that the usual suspects have been crying wolf about Iranian nukes since the Clinton years. What’s new is that he’s naming names and calling out the true objective: regime change for its own sake, regardless of the consequences to U.S. troops, the economy or global stability. Carlson’s antiwar rhetoric is calculated, of course— it’s still wrapped in nationalist bravado and conspiratorial flourishes. But it’s striking how sharply it contrasts with the Bush-Cheney redux crowd inside Trumpworld, who are again salivating at the prospect of another regime change adventure in the Middle East. Carlson’s warning that war with Iran could be a “profound betrayal” of Trump’s base is aimed like a dagger at the heart of MAGA’s internal contradictions.

This feud also reminds us that Carlson’s “peace candidate” framing of Trump is part myth-making, part gaslighting. Trump came close to launching strikes on Iran in 2019, and his administration blew up the Iran nuclear deal, assassinated Qassem Soleimani, and brought us to the brink of war multiple times. Still, Carlson’s argument that the war hawks in Trump’s orbit want to push him into a world war he can't win isn’t wrong— and it reveals just how unhinged and out of step people like Levin have become, even inside the MAGAverse. Let’s never pretend Tucker’s newfound skepticism of foreign entanglements comes from a place of moral clarity. This is the same guy who praises authoritarian regimes and regularly scapegoats immigrants. But this spat is illuminating because it exposes the incoherence at the heart of the post-Trump right: half of them want to remake the world in America’s image through brute force, and the other half want to wall it off and bunker down. At a time when public support for endless war is at a historic low, seeing right-wingers publicly rip each other to shreds over the prospect of war with Iran might be one of the more useful implosions we’ve witnessed in a while. It won’t stop the military-industrial complex, but it just might make it harder for them to sell the next war under the MAGA banner.