Israel probably wouldn’t attack Iran without the U.S. on board. Going it alone would be insanity. From Kelly Beaucar Vlahos at theamericanconservative.com:
Not only would such an attack fail in military terms, but it would alienate Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be working President Donald Trump’s last nerve when it comes to Iran.
With the White House closer to a deal than the Biden administration was ever in its four years of talking, Trump says an Israeli military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities would “not be appropriate.”
When asked Wednesday about a reported testy exchange with Netanyahu, Trump said he didn’t “warn” the prime minister, but was firm that he wanted to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear program with a deal, not war.
“We’re having very good discussions with [the Iranians] and I said I don’t think it is appropriate right now,” Trump told reporters. “If we can make a deal it will save a lot of lives.”
U.S. officials have concluded their fifth round of talks with the Iranians, moving closer to a replacement for the JCPOA nuclear deal that Trump walked away from during his first term in 2018. That agreement, brokered by President Barack Obama in 2015, included China, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany as signers. The elaborate regime of nuclear inspections, made in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on Tehran, was largely working, according to the inspectors, partners, and the United Nations. Trump, egged on at the time by the neoconservatives in his administration and in Congress, disagreed, and believed he could get “a better deal.”
Now is his time, and he doesn’t want Israel—which never wanted a deal with Iran to begin with—to stand in his way.
That sets up a clash between the interests of the United States and Israel, one that has been playing out in leaks over the last week of Israel’s “plans” to attack Iran, with or without Washington’s help or acquiescence. The New York Times published a piece Wednesday confirming that Israel’s intentions were quite explicit: “Israeli officials have dusted off an old playbook: threatening to strike Iran, even without American help. They insist they are not bluffing, even though they have made such threats and backed away several times over nearly two decades.”
