U.S. President Donald Trump, the tough negotiator, ended up folding his cards and acceding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war lust—that’s the short version of a lengthy account by CNBC. Their account relied upon interviews with five current U.S. officials, two Middle Eastern officials, two former U.S. officials with ‘knowledge of the deliberations’ and a Trump ally. In summary, it reads as a moral lesson as what a leader must not do.
Trump favored negotiations over bombing and had consistently opposed Israeli military action against Iran. But at a hastily-arranged meeting at Camp David on June 8, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine gave a “pivotal briefing” on Israel’s plans to bomb, apparently as a fait accompli. For this intervention, Israeli officials had already begun to share extensive information with U.S. officials about their potential operation. “Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman, briefed Trump and his national security team about the Israeli plans to strike Iran and U.S. options, according to two U.S. officials and one of the people familiar with the deliberations. Those options, the three sources said, included logistical support, like refueling Israeli jet fighters, sharing intelligence and using the American military’s electronic warfare capabilities to help Israel jam enemy weapons and communications. Another option was to provide direct military support to Israel, even having U.S. jets drop munitions in active combat alongside Israeli fighters, for example.” He was also told that he could do nothing. Trump then moved toward tacit approval to Israel to “have at it.” The CNBC account makes no mention of the sanest option which would have been to order Israel to stand down or be cut off.
CNBC added the story that Netanyahu called for assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but that Trump refused to sign on. Yet this implies that he did sign off on everything else.
Previously, the U.S. had moved P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance planes to the Middle East to conduct surveillance and also had diverted over 20,000 U.S. anti-drone missiles from Kiev to the Middle East. Trump spoke with Netanyahu on June 9 and apparently adjusted to Netanyahu’s decision “to neutralize Iran’s nuclear capabilities and that the United States would have to lend some military support for defensive purposes, as well as some intelligence support.... Israel leaned heavily on American intelligence, bunker-buster bombs that were provided this year and air defense systems, some of which were scrambled into the region quickly in recent days.”
Finally, the eerie presence of Iraq, 2002-03, and the deliberate manipulation and lying that murdered a million civilians, was suggested by CNBC’s insertion of this gem: “Among the reasons for Trump’s change of heart was the declaration Thursday, June 12, by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran was in breach of its nonproliferation requirements. Trump was also concerned by the sense coming from Israel, the United States and the IAEA that Iran had achieved leaps in its nuclear program, and he didn’t want to be the president on whose watch it was able to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
Yet, CNBC indicated, Trump still believed that diplomacy might work while also deciding that he would not “stand in Israel’s way. As late as June 12, he said about an Israeli attack: “I don’t want them going in, because I think it would blow it—might help it actually, but it also could blow it, but we’ve had very good discussions with Iran. I prefer the more friendly path.” That night, the bombs rained down.
Of note, the lengthy narrative made no mention as to how Netanyahu’s “poison pill” demand—whereby Trump’s attainable goal of ‘no nuclear bomb’ for Iran was blown up into the “no civilian nuclear energy” deal-killer—was accomplished. Once that bitter pill was swallowed, Trump’s wishful desire, even with the best of intentions, was rendered impossible.
