Trump’s Foreign Policy Shake-Up: A Libertarian Perspective on the NSC Overhaul

The Dismissals: Clearing Out the Neocon Mold The quiet dismissal of NSC hardliners like Eric Trager, Merav Ceren, and Morgan Ortagus signals a break from the Israeli-first doctrine that’s dominated U.S. Middle East policy for decades. These weren’t your average bureaucrats. They were ideological operatives with a clear agenda—promoting endless antagonism with Iran, greenlighting covert games in Lebanon, and doubling down on proxy politics that kept the U.S. entangled in foreign conflicts. Merav Ceren’s background with Israel’s Ministry of Defense and her deep ties to hawkish think tanks like the FDD made her a reliable voice for escalation, not diplomacy. Trager, a vocal critic of the Muslim Brotherhood and advocate for hardline stances on Qatar and Iran, represented the intellectual…