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Netanyahu’s Iran War Trumps Trump

The convenient distractions of making war.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have one thing on common, beyond their penchant for illegal one-man rule. They are both masters at the uses of distraction.

Is the schoolyard brawl with Elon Musk an embarrassment and Trump’s Ukraine policy of cultivating Vladimir Putin an abject failure? Invade LA.

Is Gaza a humanitarian and logistical nightmare, and are the ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s coalition on the verge of bringing down the government? Make war on Iran.

Netanyahu plays this game a lot better than Trump does. For weeks, we have been hearing from the White House that Trump’s Middle East diplomacy was deliberately isolating Netanyahu.

Trump would make his own deal with Hamas on Gaza. He would reach his own agreement with Iran to limit nuclear capability, whether Israel liked it or not.

Well, that was then. Trump’s lead negotiator with Iran, Steve Witkoff, was about to head to Oman’s capital, Muscat, for a sixth round of talks with Iran when Israel simply decapitated Iran’s negotiating team.

As late as Thursday afternoon, Trump was saying that an Israeli strike was not imminent. “I don’t want them going in,” he told reporters.

By Friday morning, after Israel struck, Trump clumsily posted on Truth Social, as if the Israeli strike was a triumph that complemented U.S. diplomacy. “Certain Iranian hardliner’s [sic] spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” Trump wrote. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.” Later, to ABC News, Trump praised the attack in a similar fashion.

Basically, U.S. policy in the Middle East is a stepchild of Israeli policy, and Netanyahu keeps playing Trump for a fool (which is not hard). Netanyahu played the same games when Democrats were in power, with minor limits. I wish I could report that Biden had been notably better than Trump at using U.S. leverage to constrain Netanyahu. He wasn’t.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the U.S. had no advance warning of the Israeli attack, but in fact Trump was in regular touch with Netanyahu and knew what was coming. Israel did not ask Trump’s permission because it didn’t need to.

Now that Netanyahu has presented Trump with a fait accompli, the U.S. once again is in the position of having to support Israel if events escalate into a regional war. Witkoff has told senior Republicans in Congress of his concern that even a weakened Iran has ballistic missile capabilities that could break through Israel’s defenses, pulling in the U.S.

The Israel lobby has swung into its usual role of making sure the that U.S. gives Israel a blank check, no matter how reckless Israel’s policy. Progressive Democrats were outspoken in opposition.

“Iran would not be this close to possessing a nuclear weapon if Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu had not forced America out of the nuclear agreement with Iran that had brought Europe, Russia, and China together behind the United States to successfully contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said. “This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu’s own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict.”

Murphy added that America has no obligation to follow Israel into war. But if regional war comes, Israel will drag the U.S. into it. And that will serve as one more convenient distraction for Trump—unless it gets out of hand, as wars have a habit of doing.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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