President Trump’s hapless efforts to extricate himself and the United States from his failed Iran war may have one salutary piece of collateral damage. There is now a wedge between Trump and one of his prime manipulators: Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who prodded Trump into launching the war and recklessly sought to widen it, is now trying to sabotage the fragile cease-fire.
We have to hope that there will not be far more serious collateral damage in the form of increased antisemitism—of the real kind, not the fake version that Trump has been using to eviscerate civil rights enforcement for everyone but Jews. At some point, Trump may well turn on his former close ally and take MAGA with him.
The fact that the U.S. delegation to Islamabad this weekend is headed by Vice President JD Vance is a mark of Trump’s desperation. Vance was one of the few senior people in the administration (and the only one whom Trump can’t fire) to express skepticism about the war. But even before Vance departed for Pakistan, Netanyahu was doing his best to undermine the deal.
Netanyahu had not been consulted about the cease-fire, nor was Israel was invited to participate in negotiations. On Wednesday morning, hours after Trump announced the cease-fire, Israel’s military launched over 100 strikes on southern Lebanon, killing more than 300 people, including in Beirut neighborhoods outside of Hezbollah’s traditional domain that had been spared. Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon have now killed more than 1,800 people, including many civilians, and displaced more than one million from their homes.
Vance tried to claim that suspension of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon was not part of the bare-bones cease-fire agreement, calling it a “misunderstanding” with the Iranians: “I think the Iranians thought that the cease-fire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t, we never made that promise,” Vance told reporters. He was contradicted by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who helped negotiate the terms. Sharif said that Lebanon was explicitly part of the cease-fire agreement.
Israel acts, often more aggressively than Trump wants and not always on Trump’s timetable.
On Thursday, in a short phone call, Trump told Netanyahu to halt the attacks. Netanyahu has complied, for now, and said that he would begin direct talks with the Lebanese government. This seems another feint, since the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah, and it is not clear what would be negotiated. And just hours later, Netanyahu declared, “There is no cease-fire in Lebanon.”
All this is part of a pattern. Israel acts, often more aggressively than Trump wants and not always on Trump’s timetable. This helps push the U.S. into acting.
When Israel, helped by U.S. intelligence information, launched an attack on February 28 that assassinated much of Iran’s leadership, Washington was not informed in advance. Trump later expressed frustration that there was nobody to negotiate with.
On April 6, Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field, site of Iran’s largest petrochemical complex, for the second time in three weeks. After the first Israeli attack on March 18, which Trump had not approved, was followed by Iranian retaliation against other Gulf states, Trump requested Netanyahu to stop targeting South Pars. Instead, Bibi waited a little while and did it again.
This week, The New York Times published a detailed investigative piece on the key meeting on February 11 in the White House Situation Room, where Netanyahu, joined by Mossad director David Barnea speaking on a screen, made the case for war, supposedly based on deep Mossad intelligence.
According to the Times, Netanyahu claimed four benefits. “Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz.” The risk that Iran could harm U.S. interests in neighboring Gulf countries was assessed as minimal. And street protests would resume and create conditions for regime change.
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John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, described the Mossad claims as “farcical.” According to the Times, Trump then asked Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for his view.
Gen. Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”
Despite these warnings, which proved prescient, Trump was all in. One can only imagine the buyer’s remorse that Trump feels now.
After the February meeting, plans for war went on the fast track. Israel’s assassinations of Iran’s leadership followed two weeks later.
Just as Bibi pushed Trump into making war based on false premises, he now wants the war to continue as long as possible. His corruption trial resumes Saturday. Elections must be held by October, and despite his multiple wars, Netanyahu’s governing coalition has consistently been well behind in polls.
It is no longer possible to deny that Israel’s goals and interests are not those of the U.S. Even Trump, in his demented and frantic state, must finally grasp that.
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