When Marco Rubio was announced as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, it turned more than a few heads. A faction of the MAGA movement was enraged that Trump had appointed someone they considered to be a neoconservative to the most important foreign policy post in his Cabinet, with some questioning whether the 47th president had taken an abrupt turn on his stated desire to avoid unnecessary wars.

It’s absolutely fair to say that at the beginning of his career, Rubio was party to the Bush-era neoconservative persuasion. He supported military intervention in Libya in 2011 that led to a catastrophic failed state, the return of slavery, and a humanitarian crisis in North Africa and eventually Europe. The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and the subsequent migrant crisis into Italy led to the rise of the populist Right across Europe, including the election of Giorgia Meloni as prime minister.