President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu are supposedly diverging on the matter of what to do about Iran. Trump wants a deal but Netanyahu wants war.
According to a report in CNN yesterday, they “had a tense conversation “ on Tuesday about how to proceed. That followed a Sunday phone call during which Trump told Bibi that he was likely to move forward with new targeted attacks on Iran early in the week. But then Trump changed his mind. Netanyahu made his disappointment known on Tuesday, telling Trump that he believed delaying the expected attacks was a mistake and that the president should continue as planned, an unnamed US official said.
An Israeli source told the network that Netanyahu is skeptical talks will produce an agreement, particularly because, to date, Iran has refused to give up its enriched uranium—a sticking point for the US. During the hour-long conversation, Netanyahu pushed for a resumption of military action, an Israeli source familiar with the matter said. The divergence was clear: Trump wants to see if a deal can be reached, but Netanyahu was expecting something else, an Israeli official said.
The Israeli concern after that Tuesday phone call extended to officials around Netanyahu, another Israeli source told CNN. There is a strong desire in the upper echelons of the Israeli government for renewed military action, this source said, and mounting frustration that Trump is continuing to allow what they say is Iran’s diplomatic foot-dragging.
“And despite Netanyahu’s pressure to return to active combat, Trump, for now, has continued to push for a diplomatic agreement, claiming Wednesday that things with Iran are ‘right on the borderline’ and that it’s worth giving diplomacy a few more days if it saves lives,” CNN concludes.