Any comprehensive inventory of the war that has thrown the Middle East into chaos will highlight not only Donald Trump’s unprecedented ineptitude committed but also the systematic ineptitude of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel.
The current U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran are “something I’ve longed to do for 40 years,” Netanyahu admitted on March 1, a day after the first missile strike on Iran and a day after Tehran’s leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were assassinated.
If Netanyahu’s dream came true, after 40 years, it was due to his tenacity bordering on obsession.
Because, as former US Secretary of State John Kerry recently recalled that it wasn’t the first time Netanyahu had tried convincing Trump and all the US presidents before him, but without success.
It didn’t work with Trump the first time either; But he didn’t give up.
In the 13 months since Trump took office for his second term until the outbreak of the war, Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump on average every two months – a record for direct interactions with the US leader, unmatched by any other foreign leader.
Netanyahu’s campaign to persuade the American president was not, of course, limited to their face-to-face meetings, as there were multiple remote meetings too.
The recent revelations of the New York Times reveal that, Trump’s irreversible decision to go to war was reached on February 11, in the famous Situation Room, at the White House, where the Israeli prime minister and the head of Mossad delivered Trump a spectacular story with a happy ending.
The NYT also notes that none of the U.S. president’s close associates such as VP Vance, the secretary of state and the head of the CIA aw Netanyahu’s presentation and closing argument as nothing more than a live steam for young children. But those people didn’t exclude the fact that their boss might believe in fairy tales and neither did any of them resign in protest.
It is expected that history will at some point do full justice and expand the New York Times’ revelations.
It is relevant to know down to the smallest detail how the presentation went, and the arguments presented by Netanyahu, and the concrete information on which those arguments were based.
Perhaps it would be even more interesting what the Israeli prime minister did not say to the American president, given the fact that as soon as the attack on Iran began, the difference between Tel Aviv’s and Washington’s agenda was clear the former rushing to widen the front beyond Iran and keep it active in the long term. while Washington pursuing an operation limited to Iranian territory and wanting it to be short.
It is already increasingly clear that, until he gave the OK to enter the war, Trump had not noticed or understood the potential of the extra-Iran ramifications nor the extra-bkitzkrieg dimension of Netanyahu’s goal.
After six weeks of fighting, Iran had been a central objective for Netanyahu from the start, but also a pretext for essential peripheral objectives which is quite different from the Operation Epic Fury, the name the Trump administration gave the operation.
Judging by the zeal with which Israel liquidated Iran’s leadership (so much so that Trump complained that he no longer had anyone to negotiate with), as well as the zeal with which he tried to torpedo from day one the fragile truce unilaterally offered by the US (Israel was informed very shortly before the public announcement), a civil war would suit Netanyahu because a civil war would keep Iran occupied, and therefore make Israel feel safer.
But it is the last thing the US, Trump, the Gulf states and the rest of the international community wants.
Judging by how he acts in Lebanon, Netanyahu can be suspected of the same thing: in case he cannot de facto annex the southern part of the country, it would not be surprising if a new Lebanese civil conflict would suit him.
In this way, Israel could continue its military operations against Hezbollah and make it seem legitimate and at would obtain circumstances to allow it to carry out non-transparent operations in the area.
The reality is that, in the Iranian case, Trump allowed himself to be fooled by Netanyahu, and Netanyahu did not let himself be fooled, until he fooled Trump.
But for Netanyahu to succeed, Trump needed to play ball.
As for Iran, the current US president has always spoken of a military solution since the time when he was a businessman and television star.
After he was elected for the first time, he destroyed the framework on international control of Iran’s nuclear program, withdrawing the US from the JCPOA agreement, concluded under the Obama presidency.
Moreover, although he created a gap, Trump did not put anything in its place, so the Iranian program had the opportunity to develop the atomic arsenal beyond the control of the international community.
Throughout that period, Netanyahu knew how to court Trump, just like in the “loverboy” method, in which ignorant girls are seduced by tricksters who later abandon them to the pimps.
The Israeli prime minister demonized the JCPOA agreement internationally, a key moment was harsh criticism he made at the US Congress in the spring of 2015.
A Donald Trump who feels flattered (even recently he said) even by Kim Jong-un’s warm words, a Donald Trump who feels flattered even by Vladimir Putin’s warm words, naturally felt flattered by the convergence of ideas that Benjamin Netanyahu signaled to him about the JCPOA agreement on Iran.
Moreover, it should come as no surprise that Trump had more faith in the stories told by Netanyahu and the head of Mossad in the Situation Room on February 11 than in the doubts expressed by his top close aides.
After all, when Donald Trump gave more credit to the Russian intelligence services and dictator Putin in his first term than to the American intelligence services, on the subject of Moscow’s interference in the US elections, is well known.
And in the context of reports that the Russians are helping the Iranians in the war with the US, Trump’s emissary, Steve Witkoff, said that Moscow’s denials must be taken “at their word”.
So Trump has a historical inclination to give more credit to foreign third parties than to his own institutions and specialists if there are crucial American interests at stake, which often do not coincide with the interests of those foreign third parties.
Finally, although on Iran, Trump, Netanyahu, and Israel itself are trapped, not safe from the potential boomerang effect of the war.
The freedom to act that Israel obtained from Trump, once convinced to join Israel in Iran, was indiscriminately exploited by Tel Aviv.
It went so far as to throw the Gulf states, Lebanon, and the global economy into chaos.
The result of Israeli operations see innocent civilian casualties every day – especially in Lebanon, but not only.
The pretext of Hezbollah’s links to Tehran is being misused by the Netanyahu government, just as it was abusively used by the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, followed by a war in Gaza, resulting in tens of thousands of victims (many of the victims being children, women, the elderly, the sick).
In the West Bank, the tragedy produced by Israeli settlers, the Israeli army and the Israeli government’s own settlement policy is also happening.
The very fact that Netanyahu, his government, as well as a part of Israeli society resort to anything to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, will massively erode Israel’s reputation and the legitimacy of its domestic and foreign policy.
After Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and now Iran, support for Israel has reached an all-time low in the West. This is unprecedented in recent decades and has the potential to give birth to monsters in the coming decades.
Israel, given the area in which it is located, as well as its demographic, geographical and industrial limits, will always need great and influential friends in Europe and the US.
Netanyahu has succeeded in alienating them.
And one thing must be realized: Israel’s unconditional friendships can’t be preserved indefinitely in America or in Europe.
After all, America has been playing this role just for 60 years, starting with the Lyndon Johnson administration.
Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, this role had been played by France. A detail worth remembering: in the mid-1950s, the French historian Pierre Razoux points out, the Țahal was able to form its armored corps, as a stand-alone weapon, thanks to the tanks delivered by Paris.
But external developments, as well as internal French developments, made that exceptional relationship run out at some point (Paris’ normalization of relations with Algeria, in the early 60s, was sort of the trigger).
Fortunately for Israel, France’s place was immediately taken by America.
But today, America is also showing signs of fatigue, from the perspective of the tolerance of American society and a growing part of the American political class towards the abuse of trust committed by Israel.
If, at some point, the American pillar will also collapse, as the French one did, what will the impetuous Israel do, in a region where it has many enemies, in a world which is increasingly horrified by the cruelty of Israeli policies or military interventions?
Shimon Peres stated at one point, however, that “the alliance with France was an almost unprecedented friendship in the history of international relations”. And he also said that the France-Israel relationship “developed in a spirit of trust and mutual understanding, rarely seen between governments.”
It was like that until it wasn’t anymore.
And the relationship with America is not safe from the possibility of such an outcome.
Netanyahu pushed the US down the wrong path, but he did the same with his own nation. Of course, in both cases, he had accomplices.
- PS: Netanyahu’s cunning in no way absolves Trump of the huge responsibility he bears for the war in Iran. For without America’s green light and without all its support for Israel, Israel would not have been able to take on a war of this magnitude. Israel is vitally dependent on America’s military, industrial, diplomatic and political resources.
