Netanyahu’s Eternal War Will Sink the American Empire

On February 28, Israel and the United States launched an airstrike against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The attack, which lacked any moral or legal justification, resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several senior regime officials.

What was initially dubbed “Operation Epemic Fury” quickly escalated into a regional war with far-reaching consequences not only for the victim, Iran, but also for America’s European and Gulf allies, global energy security, and the international economy. It is arguably the most foolish war of the 21st century. Who was behind this idea?

Some argue that the United States was the one pulling the strings. Amr Moussa, former Secretary-General of the Arab League, stated, “The ongoing attack on Iran is not merely an Israeli adventure that Netanyahu succeeded in dragging the US into. Rather, it is a planned American strategic move, in which Washington used Israel as a regional partner in a major step toward reshaping the Middle East.”

Yet, in reality, it was Israeli ambition that drove the American position. Israel manipulated the US to achieve military dominance in the region.

Donald Trump would certainly not be pleased with this characterization nor with being described as a subordinate to Benjamin Netanyahu. But he is equally incapable of providing a coherent, logical explanation for this war. Trump is no strategic mastermind; he is a naive, narcissistic megalomaniac with unpredictable and therefore extremely dangerous behavior.

The stated objectives, or rather pretexts, for Trump’s war on Iran keep shifting. Initially, he pretended to give the Iranian people a chance to overthrow their brutal regime. But it is highly unlikely that the freedom and rights of the Iranian people are anywhere near the top of his priorities if they even register at all.

Then came the claim that the attack was meant to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Yet, in June of last year, following the first US-Israeli attack on Iran dubbed the “12-Day War” Trump boasted that he had completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities. If that was true, there was certainly no need for another attack.

Another goal Trump mentioned was destroying Iran’s ballistic missile program and launch systems. But an enemy possessing missiles is hardly justification for war. Under international law, only the threat of an imminent attack grants a nation the right to self-defense. There was no imminent Iranian threat to the United States or to Israel, for that matter.

Two days into the war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio slipped, revealing that the US attacked Iran simply because it knew Israel was about to strike, and thus feared that America would become the target of Iranian retaliation.

In other words, the imminent threat came from Israel, not Iran. Trump appeared not as a leader, but as a subordinate with little control. Under pressure from the White House, Rubio tried to walk back his remarks, but it was too late: the secret was out.

For his part, Trump rejected the idea that he was manipulated, saying, “If anything, I might have forced Israel to act.” That claim is absurd. No one has done more than Netanyahu to promote the idea that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. He has demonized the Islamic Republic and repeatedly called for a joint US-Israeli military strike to topple its regime.

No previous American president could have been convinced to go along with this insane idea. But Netanyahu found in Trump a willing, eager partner.

Trump’s participation in this blatant war of aggression was decisive. The day after the first airstrikes on Iran, Netanyahu announced that US involvement “allowed us to do what I have hoped to do for 40 years.” Clearly, Trump was not the one forcing him.

Joseph Kent, a senior counterterrorism official and a loyal Trump supporter, strongly argued that the US president was deceived by Israel into abandoning the “America First” principle and rushing into a war that “serves no interest of the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”

In his resignation letter, posted on X, Kent wrote: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our people. It is clear we started this war because of pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby in America.”

Addressing Trump directly, Kent added: “Early in your administration, senior Israeli officials and influential members of the US media launched a disinformation campaign that completely undermined your ‘America First’ agenda and planted pro-war sentiments to encourage confrontation with Iran. This media environment was used to deceive you into believing Iran posed an imminent threat to the US, that you should strike now, and that there was a clear path to a quick victory.”

The Hebrew press revealed details of a key pre-war meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump on December 28–29, 2025, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

According to these reports, Netanyahu’s message was: the nuclear issue is no longer the main concern. The top priority is the ballistic missiles Iran developed into a complex, multi-layered system after the June 2025 US-Israeli strike. These had to be destroyed to prevent Iran from using them as a deterrent against any attack on its nuclear weapons facilities. Netanyahu warned Trump against negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran, stating that if he didn’t get the green light, Israel would go it alone and Trump would have no choice but to join.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who mediated the last nuclear talks between Iran and the US in Geneva, offered a harsh assessment of the lead-up to war. In an article for The Economist, he wrote that the United States had “lost control of its foreign policy.” According to al-Busaidi, the two sides were “on the verge of a real agreement” in the nuclear negotiations.

Similarly, Jonathan Powell, the British national security adviser who attended the final phase of the talks, expressed astonishment at the significant progress toward a lasting, substantive nuclear deal, which he believed was enough to stop war between the two sides.

The US negotiating team in Geneva consisted of Trump’s special envoy, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. They reportedly brought no experts with them. One Gulf diplomat described the pair as “Israeli tools who conspired to force the American president into a war he now wants to escape.”

In Geneva, the Iranians agreed to major concessions, including reducing and freezing uranium enrichment. They also offered the US a chance to participate in a future civilian nuclear program, in exchange for lifting sanctions and releasing frozen assets. The final phase of negotiations was scheduled for the following week in Vienna. But just 48 hours later, bombs began falling on Tehran.

Wars rarely go according to plan. Starting a war is far easier than ending one. The aerial war on Iran quickly spiraled out of the control of its architects, turning into a devastating regional conflict with global repercussions.

The aggressors did not limit themselves to military targets. They struck civilian infrastructure, power plants, hospitals, and schools.

On the first day of the war, a US Tomahawk missile hit a girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, killing approximately 165 people and injuring nearly 100 others. In the first three weeks of the attack, over 2,000 people were killed in Iran. In Lebanon, in flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement, Israel renewed its aggressive, indiscriminate attacks on Hezbollah, killing 1,039 people and injuring 2,876. They bombed homes, schools, hospitals, and bridges, forcing nearly one million people to flee their homes in the south.

The Iranians did exactly what they said they would do if attacked. They responded forcefully and effectively against Israel, launching missiles and drones at US military bases across the Middle East. They struck ports, airports, power plants, oil refineries, and other sensitive civilian targets of America’s allies in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. They also closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas passes, threatening a deep and lasting global economic crisis as stock markets collapse and living costs soar.

Meanwhile, the war on Iran has become increasingly unpopular at home, especially within Trump’s own MAGA base. His critics, with good reason, claim that this unauthorized foreign adventure is meant to make Israel great, not America.

The war is costing the US well over a billion dollars a day. After failing to consult Congress, the administration is now requesting a massive $20 billion to continue an unwinnable war. As Pete Hegseth, the mockingly pedantic Secretary of War, put it: “It takes money to kill bad guys.”

What Trump fails to understand is that some of his goals do not align with Netanyahu’s agenda. Trump’s primary goal is regime change in Tehran; Netanyahu’s ultimate goal is regime collapse. Trump naively envisioned a process similar to what happened in Venezuela, where an adversarial leader is removed and replaced by a more compliant figure from within the system.

But Iran is not Venezuela. The regime there, despite being deeply unpopular, is deeply entrenched and has so far shown no signs of cracking under allied strikes.

Netanyahu does not hope for a more moderate leadership. He wants the complete collapse of the government, the weakening of its military forces, and the fragmentation of the country. He wants separatist groups Azeris, Baloch, Arabs, and Kurds to press their demands and weaken the central government. Mossad is specifically trying to encourage Iraqi Kurds to invade Iran. If the result is civil war, so be it. Ultimately, the goal is a weak country unable to defend itself, like Syria.

This is part of a broader plan to dismantle Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli hegemony, which includes Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. None of this has anything to do with making America great again. In fact, it starkly contradicts Trump’s recent election promise to avoid unnecessary, unprofitable foreign military entanglements.

Trump is, at heart, an isolationist. He needs a calm and stable regional environment to strike deals with wealthy Gulf states. Israel, by contrast, is an agent of chaos—a nation that lives by the sword, and thus a source of endless disturbance, violence, and war.

Israel is using the global media’s focus on the conflict in Iran to divert attention from the ongoing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. By relentlessly pursuing the dream of a “Greater Israel,” it is turning public opinion not only against itself but also against its superpower patron.

After several weeks of this Israeli-led attack on Iran, Trump finds himself in a bind. He needs to end an expensive and unpopular military intervention without losing face. Otherwise, he will confirm his reputation as someone who always chickens out at the last moment.

The only way to end this ill-conceived and disastrous war is not through military escalation but by returning to negotiations. But here, Trump faces a dilemma of his own making. By endorsing Israel’s decapitation strategy, he now complains: “All their leaders are gone. We’re having a hard time. We want to talk to them, and there’s no one to talk to.”

Poor Donald! He sounds like a man who kills his parents and then begs the judge for mercy because he’s an orphan.

 

 

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