Trump has told his advisers that no one can handle Netanyahu, and that he wants to “bomb everyone,” according to a person who heard his comments. @jdawsey1@alexbward@AnatPeled1 https://t.co/PdgyJny2go
“ Israel risks finding itself in a strategically weaker position. It has not achieved a transformative outcome in Iran, while at the same time potentially damaging its credibility with its most important ally.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu has few people to blame but himself.
When President Trump posted his now-famous message, "Help is on the way," Netanyahu likely saw a historic opportunity: persuading the President of the United States to join a campaign against Iran and fundamentally alter the regional balance of power.
From that moment onward, it appeared that Israel's overriding objective was to convince Trump that the time had come for a decisive confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Every argument, every intelligence assessment, and every potential scenario seemed directed toward one goal: securing greater American involvement.
The problem was that the underlying assumptions were deeply flawed. It is difficult to believe that Netamyahu genuinely expected Kurdish groups, opposition movements, or exiled political figures to trigger regime change in Iran. Such expectations would reflect a profound misunderstanding of the resilience of the Islamic Republic and the limitations of external pressure.
That was not a strategy; it was wishful thinking.
Trump has always preferred clear victories and limited commitments. He is willing to use force, but he has consistently shown little appetite for open-ended conflicts or nation-building projects. The prospect of regime change in Tehran may have been appealing rhetorically, but once the conflict threatened broader economic consequences, particularly disruptions to energy markets and maritime trade, the calculus inevitably changed.
The Strait of Hormuz represented the critical turning point. An extended closure or sustained disruption of shipping lanes would have imposed significant costs on the global economy and directly affected American interests. For a president focused on economic performance and domestic political considerations, that was a risk not worth taking.
The Israeli PM should have understood this. They knew that Trump had no intention of deploying large-scale American ground forces to Iran under virtually any circumstances. Without such a commitment, regime change was never a realistic objective. Military pressure alone could weaken Iran, but it was unlikely to bring down the regime.
Faced with mounting economic risks and limited strategic upside, the administration's incentives shifted toward de-escalation and diplomacy. Reaching an arrangement with Tehran that preserved freedom of navigation and prevented a wider regional conflict became the more attractive option.
In that context, efforts by Netanyahu to block or complicate such an agreement only increased friction with Washington and reinforced the administration's determination to pursue a diplomatic off-ramp.
The result is that Israel risks finding itself in a strategically weaker position. It has not achieved a transformative outcome in Iran, while at the same time potentially damaging its credibility with its most important ally.
The broader lesson extends beyond this particular conflict. Future American administrations may become even more skeptical of arguments that military pressure alone can fundamentally transform Iran's political system. The war may ultimately mark the end of an era in which regime change was viewed, explicitly or implicitly, as a viable foundation for Western policy toward Tehran.
If that is the case, any Israeli policymaker will need to rethink their assumptions. Weakening Iran and overthrowing the Islamic Republic are not the same objective. The recent confrontation demonstrated that the former may be achievable through military means; the latter almost certainly is not without a level of American commitment that neither President Trump nor, likely, future U.S. presidents are prepared to provide.
The result is a diplomatic fiasco of historic proportions for Israel, one that is unlikely to fade quickly and whose political and strategic consequences may be felt for years to come.
#IranWar
"Israel failed to achieve its strategic goals. It damaged crucial ties with America and with Arab countries that regarded it as an ally. All this is also likely to damage Netanyahu's prospects of re-election... that said, none of his challengers yet has an alternative strategy." https://t.co/HjwTzO4aBv
הישראלים שמתגוללים עכשיו על טראמפ, פשוט חיים בסרט ולא מודעים למציאות.
טראמפ, תאהבו או לא, הוא המנהיג המשמעותי היחיד בעולם כולו שעדיין תומך בישראל. האחרון.
הוא בסבירות מאד גבוהה גם הנשיא האמריקאי האחרון שיתמוך בנו בלי הסתייגויות ודרישות. כמו שביידן היה אחרון הדמוקרטים הפרו-ישראלים (ועדיין חטף ים קללות והשמצות מהתנועה הביביסטית הבורה) גם במפלגה הרפובליקאית יש שינוי עמוק ביחס לישראל. אפילו מרקו רוביו הפרו-ישראלי הזהיר את טראמפ לפני ההרפתקה האיראנית שנתניהו משקר לו. על ואנס אין צורך להרחיב.
טראמפ הוא האדם היחיד שעומד בין ישראל לסנקציות בינלאומיות קשות וכואבות על רקע המלחמות הארוכות, ארוכות מדי, בעזה ולבנון. מלחמות שלא הביאו ביטחון לא בדרום ולא בצפון, ולא השמידו את חמאס וחיזבאללה, אבל השמידו ועוד איך את המעמד הבינלאומי של ישראל והפכו אותה למדינה בלי חברים ובלי תמיכה, חוץ מאיש אחד, מבוגר וקצת הזוי, שעדיין שבוי בתפיסות ישנות של ישראל כמדינה פופולארית וממשיך לתמוך בנו. בינתיים.
אז לכתוב ולשדר כמה הוא נורא ולוזר וכדומה זה פשוט מעשה אובדני. מי יגן על ישראל בזירה העולמית, סטארמר? מקרון? אפילו מלוני החצי-פשיסטית כבר מאשימה אותנו בפשעי מלחמה. גם הממשלה השמרנית בגרמניה מראה סימני ייאוש ומיאוס.
האסטרטגיה הכי כושלת של נתניהו, יותר אפילו מ"חיזוק החמאס" שהביא עלינו את טבח אוקטובר, היא אסטרטגיית "טראמפ ואין בלתו".
נתניהו שרף את כל הגשרים לצד הדמוקרטי באמריקה; ירק בפרצוף של היהודים האמריקאים עשרות פעמים; הפקיר את זירת התודעה בארה"ב ובעולם כולו; עלה על העצבים לכל מנהיגי אירופה כולל הימנים ביותר; איכזב את מנהיגי המדינות הסוניות שלקחו הימור על התקרבות לישראל; והשאיר אותנו לבד, לבד, לבד, עם טראמפ בלבד.
אותו טראמפ שהחסידים הטיפשים של נתניהו מקללים ומשמיצים עכשיו. "אחריי המבול".
President Trump’s Iran deal, signed not in Washington or Geneva but at the Palace of Versailles, is meant to inaugurate a new era rather than punish a defeated foe. Versailles once codified an uneasy peace in 1919; Trafalgar, a century earlier, broke Napoleon’s naval power and quietly decided the long war’s trajectory. Critics will call this agreement naïve, but its logic is Trafalgar, not appeasement: a deliberate turning point that trades permanent mobilization for a global peace dividend and a chance at durable stability.
If the US weaponizing the USD will encourage countries to look for other options, then Iran weaponizing the Strait will encourage countries to look for other options.
It goes both ways...
This is payback for that phone call when Trump asked for Bibi's support live on national television and got rejected in front of the whole country. Now the roles have been reversed, it is Bibi who needs help. The real question is how this unfolds and whether the opposition will seize the moment and grow bold enough to challenge his position as Prime Minister.
I fully understand. It is extremely disorienting when Trump actually makes sense. But what he is saying is true. This warning - that the overuse of financial sanctions would cause a rush away from the dollar - was first stated by Jack Lew, under Obama.
In a major 2016 speech, Lew warned against "sanctions overreach," arguing that excessive use of sanctions could encourage countries and companies to avoid the US financial system and the dollar. He said:
"The more we condition use of the dollar and our financial system on adherence to U.S. foreign policy, the more the risk of migration to other currencies and other financial systems grows."
This is payback for that phone call when Trump asked for Bibi's support live on national television and got rejected in front of the whole country. Now the roles have been reversed, it is Bibi who needs help. The real question is how this unfolds and whether the opposition will seize the moment and grow bold enough to challenge his position as Prime Minister.
This is payback for that phone call when Trump asked for Bibi's support live on national television and got rejected in front of the whole country. Now the roles have been reversed, it is Bibi who needs help. The real question is how this unfolds and whether the opposition will seize the moment and grow bold enough to challenge his position as Prime Minister.
@MJTruthUltra This is payback for that phone call when he asked for his support live on national television and got rejected in front of the whole country.
Many will dismiss this clip with Trump as empty talk and self-serving.
But they may miss a deeper message here: Trump is deliberately refuting the very premises of Israel's case against Iran: That Iran is ideological, irrational, and suicidal.
The first two premises eliminate diplomacy and detterence. The last one ensures that the only option the US will have is preventive war.
These are the premises you want in order to force the US into war.
Israel largely succeeded in getting Washington to adopt these assumptions.
It is not a small thing that Trump is directly tearing them apart.
“People shouldn’t read too much into the language of the MOU,” one US official told me, describing the agreement as a “political document.”
“What’s more important than the actual document is the understandings we have with each other... We came up with language that allows (Iran) to say what they need to say for their domestic politics.”