Netanyahu Escalates War, Defying Trump
A play in three acts.
Axios (“Trump tells Netanyahu not to strike Iran“):
President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday not to retaliate against Iran’s missile attack and allow more time for diplomacy, according to a senior U.S. official and an Israeli source familiar with details of the call.
[…]
Trump told Netanyahu during the call to hold off because “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” according to the U.S. official. Netanyahu pushed back but ultimately “pseudo agreed” to stand down, the official said.
The official said Sunday’s call was calmer than last week’s tense exchange between the leaders and that Trump did not raise his voice at Netanyahu. “We think the president bought a little bit of time. He is pretty adamant that we are close to a deal with Iran. I don’t think anything is imminent in terms of an Israeli strike,” the U.S. official said.
[…]
Trump told the Financial Times that Netanyahu “won’t have any choice” but to accept any deal the U.S. secures from negotiations with Iran. “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” Trump said of Netanyahu.
Reuters (“Israel hits Iran petrochemical plant in new strikes after Trump reprimand“):
Israel said on Monday it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran’s southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks.
The escalation complicates U.S.-led efforts to broker a broader deal with Iran, driving oil prices up by nearly 5%, with benchmark Brent futures back above $97 a barrel.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed the U.S. for the latest exchange of fire with Israel and said further attacks on non-military and energy targets would have consequences for the global economy.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social, earlier this morning:
For some reason, I’m reminded of a memorable line from Zathras. (Or was it Zathras?)
Great war. Terrible war. Much killings. Everyone fighting. A great darkness. It is the end of everything. Zathras warn, but no, no one listens to poor Zathras, no.
Netanyahu is not the same kind of delusional as Trump. He knows that there are effectively no negotiations, that there is no deal in the offing, and he knows that Trump is ignorant, delusional and weak. So he bullies or ignores Trump and gets away with it because support for Bibi has become central to what we laughingly call Trump’s foreign policy.
Bibi has his own delusions as regards Hezbollah. He keeps obliterating Hezbollah and Hezbollah keeps not being obliterated, mirroring Trump’s insistence that Iran has been destroyed. Drone warfare is just getting started in the ME. It’s going to get much more dominant and Israel has no more ability to stop drones than the Russians do. The Israeli military advantage has been curtailed.
@Michael Reynolds: One thing I’m surprised about is that Hezbollah, Houthis, or Iran has lobbed anything at a settlement in the West Bank. Especially given the tensions between the settlers and the Palestinians.
This is what you would expect from the guy who won by proclaiming “I alone can fix it,” no?
He believed it then, and he believes it now. Those of us who know he was delusional then and now will get little satisfaction from being right all along.
Coming on the heels of the Wrlker interview…the emperor is a sad little child w no clothes, save for his soiled diaper.
Reading Targeted: Beirut by Jack Carr about the bombing of the US Embassy and US Marine Barracks. One of my TBS classmates was killed in the barracks bombing. Israel ignored US pleas for supporting US peace efforts, and so they do again in Iran.
84% OF TRUMP VOTERS SUPPORT STRIKES IN IRAN.
In case anyone wondered, not the President for the entire nation. Really, just the President for himself, and anyone whom he thinks agrees with him.
Who knew you could fit a cuck chair behind the resolute desk?
(Edit, double-post… is the double-post check broken? Sometimes if the network is slow, I think I failed to hit post)
There were 122 announced Infrastructure Weeks in the first Trump term.
@Neil Hudelson: I have a mental picture of some poor schmuck in a cubicle in the Israeli Foreign or Defense Ministry whose job is monitoring social media and the press to collect everything Trump says. And he’s feeding a team of diplomats, defense analysts, intelligence analysts, and psychologists tasked with understanding, as best anyone can, Trump’s chaotic, psychopathic nature. And I expect every major government in the world except ours has a similar team.
@Skookum: TBS 3-66?
@Scott F.: Netanyahu replied, effectively, by saying: “No, Donald, you don’t have any choice because you don’t dare alienate the Christian right part of your rapidly shrinking MAGA coalition.”
@a country lawyer: Bravo 82
I suspect Trump is Not The One.
I wonder if El Taco realizes his claims that he calls the shots is an admission of responsibility for this latest American Quagmire(TM)*.
I also wonder what happens when the global oil reserves that have kept the Hormuz closure form being a catastrophe finally run out. Unless this has already happened and I’ve misunderstood the situation.
*American Quagmire(TM) is a registered trademark of the the United States Of America. All rights reserved.
Trump persists in making new rods for his own back. By insisting Netanyahu is his puppet who will do as Trump tells him, he’s implicitly taking responsibility for everything Israel does in this war. Which in turn makes it impossible for US negotiators to argue convincingly that Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon should be outside the scope of a US-Iran peace deal.
@Scott:
Excellent point.
@Ken_L:
Also an excellent point.
@Gustopher:
Thanks for the mental image of Bibi screwing Melania atop the Resolute desk while Trump jerks off. That is just ever so helpful.