Can there be anything more repulsive if not comical than Benjamin Netanyahu nominating Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize?
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Can there be anything more repulsive if not comical than Benjamin Netanyahu nominating Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize? Trump himself always complained that Obama got the esteemed prize for doing more or less nothing, while he aims to get one by being a genocidal maniac and wiping Palestine off the face of the earth, while also being dragged into WWIII with Iran. Or will he? The Iran question still remains aloof regardless of how many pundits are lining up the podcast circuit to say that it is inevitable that the U.S. will play a pivotal role in the second stage of Israel’s Iran campaign. Bibi in the White House will of course be leaning on Trump now to “finish off the job” as Alastair Crooke recently put it during an interview. But how would phase II look?
There are a number of problems for the Israelis to go ahead with such a project leaving even more emphasis on the U.S. to play an even bigger role than the first time round. Of course both these men behind close doors might be slapping one another on the back over the Iran attacks, but the reality is far from rosy from a western perspective. The main objective for the initial attacks by Iran was to topple the regime. Not only did this happen, but in reality it was the opposite which transpired. First major gaffe is that the regime in Tehran is emboldened by more public support now for standing up to the U.S. and Israel than ever before. The second gaffe was Trump’s B-2 bombers attempting to destroy three of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, which we now know, did not happen at all. The so called ‘bunker buster’ bombs didn’t go anywhere near enough down to doing the kind of damage hoped as the ventilation shafts that the bombers used were not a straight vertical line down but dog-legged in places. So, the objective of destroying Iran’s enrichment also backfired. The third major error could be argued that the U.S. successfully tricked the Iranians into allowing IAEA inspectors to double up as Mossad agents in the country, so they’ve been kicked out and won’t be coming back. This ruse has backfired as it has not only hardened Iranians about not allowing international watchdogs in their country but the resolve now to go ahead and continue the enrichment program is stronger than it has ever been.
In short, the U.S. and Israeli attacks in Iran have backfired on such a scale that it has presented a new problem to Netanyahu – which wasn’t there before. Now he has the very real threat that the pause, which Netanyahu and Trump created to allow Israel to repair and rebuild a lot of its damage is also being exploited by Iran. Tehran is not in a great hurry to hit Israel, but it almost certainly will. But this time around it will be armed by so much knowledge which it didn’t have before about where to hit and how. It still has the surprise element.
With the Americans and Bibi, the new worry is if things are left hanging as they are, Israel looks weaker and more vulnerable each day. Israel’s ports are not functioning, its fuel refinery is out of action, a good number of its military installations are destroyed. Its air force, while intact, is not a game changer as it has become clearer in recent days that the initial rocket attack which destroyed so much in Iran was actually not from Israel’s F16s and F35s but from temporary missile bases in Azerbaijan – a deft move as the surprise element was more than effective. This tells us that it is still difficult for Israeli jets to fly sorties within Iran.
But the real problem for Israel is that is cannot repeat the attacks from Azerbaijan. It’s lost the element of surprise and Trump isn’t going to do a second bombing run with the B-2 as this would make him look somewhat ridiculous as it will be clear that the first one was entirely ineffective. Bibi’s pleas with Trump in the White House may well have to be ignored by Trump for a number of reasons relating to military strategy as Israel and the U.S. have played all their cards in Iran and everything they have done has only galvanized support for the regime and hardened people’s determination to stand up and fight. It’s as though the more they do, the worse they make it.
Yet it’s not only a mission impossible militarily for Trump to drag U.S. into a long, drawn out war where he cannot show the American people victories. It’s also about his own political survival. His MAGA base were told “no more wars” and so he cannot be seen to betray those promises. Also, with midterm elections pending – where most U.S. experts predict he is going to lose at least one of the two democratic houses in the U.S. system – the worry for him will be that the remaining, second half of his second term as U.S. president will be dogged by impeachment investigations and him having to wind back his ‘policy mega bill’ which took away healthcare from 17 million Americans. It is rare for U.S. foreign policy to have such a defining factor in president’s legacy, of not their ability to stay in office or even function, but a prolonged war with Iran would do exactly that. During Trump’s first term he sent Tomahawk missiles into Assad’s Syria after he received erroneous intel which pointed the finger at Assad for supposedly dropping chemical weapons on his own people. Now in his second term, Bibi is banking on him wanting to get a second, bigger taste of what real power feels like, on a much bigger scale but it is unlikely that he will be sucked into such a ruse. The only certainty in fact is that what will happen in reality in the coming weeks on America’s side will be the exact opposite of what is announced shortly when these two dogs of war emerge from the Oval Office and face their own fake journalists with their planted questions.
