Trump has reportedly reached an “understanding” with Netanyahu on Iran:
Earlier this week, Netanyahu flew back from Washington on cloud 9. Whereas observers attributed his broad grin to the boost Trump gave him on crushing Hamas in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages held by the group, his sense of satisfaction actually appears to stem from understandings reached in the Oval Office on Iran.
A senior Israeli diplomatic source confirmed to Al-Monitor, on condition of anonymity, that Israel and the United States have reached a “full understanding” on the Iranian issue. That includes agreement on the steps that should be taken if Iran refuses to sign a nuclear agreement far more stringent than the one negotiated under President Barack Obama in 2015 and on which Trump reneged in 2018.
If this is accurate, it is more evidence that Trump will back an Israeli attack on Iran sooner than later. As usual, Trump intends to go along with whatever the Israeli government wants and he will put U.S. interests in jeopardy to do it. That risks triggering a new crisis in the Middle East, and there is a good chance that this will get the U.S. into yet another unnecessary war.
Dalia Dassa Kaye commented on the reporting of the Trump-Netanyahu “understanding” last week:
Essentially this is Trump’s backing for an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites. Trump will not lean on Netanyahu when it comes to the Palestinians or when it comes to Iran. No amount of ‘but he doesn’t want war’ talk changes that.
Trump has said that he wants a “verified nuclear peace agreement,” but we know all the reasons why this isn’t credible and why Iran won’t go for it. The terms of any new deal are going to be so unreasonable that Iran would never agree to it. What would this “far more stringent” agreement look like? David Ignatius explained the Israeli view on Friday:
If Iran won’t agree to a Libya-style abandonment of its nuclear facilities [bold mine-DL], Israel is prepared to bomb those facilities — with or without U.S. support, the officials said.
Obviously, the “Libya model” is just as much of a non-starter for Iran as it was for North Korea when John Bolton was talking about it back in 2018. There is no chance that Iran would agree to the complete elimination of its nuclear program, and the people pushing these demands must know that. This amounts to demanding Iranian capitulation with the threat of war if they refuse. No self-respecting government could agree to such extortion. It is not a serious diplomatic proposal to resolve the issue. It is clearly nothing more than a pretext for launching an attack.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
