Netanyahu escalates attacks before Trump's Iran deal can stop him

Israel’s harder push into Lebanon signals the prime minister’s fear about where negotiations will go and how voters might respond, a former ambassador argues

https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-trump-iran-war-qjzxxnsv7



If Binyamin Netanyahu were inclined to honest self-reflection, which he isn’t, he would see a deep irony in the situation in which he now finds himself. Like the protagonist in a Greek tragedy, he has got his heart’s desire, and it may be the undoing of him. For at least three decades, “Bibi” has wanted the US to join Israel in taking out the Iranian regime, its nuclear and missile programmes, and its proxies. Three months ago US and Israeli forces united to start a fierce bombing campaign against Iran. Netanyahu was side by side with President Trump and an approving Israeli public fell in behind him. His poll ratings soared.

But as we enter what may or may not be the end game of the conflict, with the US and Iran discussing terms for peace negotiations, Netanyahu is looking less and less like a winner. His war aims have not been achieved, and Trump may be about to do a deal that Netanyahu hates, leaving the Israeli leader heading into an election campaign in the autumn caught between a failed war and an exhausted electorate. Pakistani and Qatari negotiators are said to be preparing letters of intent for the US and Iran to sign that will freeze the conflict and start a time-limited window to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and address Iran’s nuclear programme.


Israel has targeted residential areas and a Palestinian refugee camp KAWANT HAJU/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

This sequence of events will be worrying Netanyahu. He will be acutely aware that when the Iranians get to this stage, they will believe themselves almost home and dry. Once the conflict is frozen and the strait opened, Iranian negotiators can go back to what they do best — obfuscating, prevaricating and creating space for the regime to recover. Netanyahu and Trump have had difficult conversations about a potential deal in recent weeks. After one call in mid-May, an Axios report quoted a US source saying Netanyahu’s “hair was on fire”. Meanwhile, Trump told journalists that Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do” on Iran. More diplomatically, Israel’s ambassador to Washington told US politicians that Netanyahu had been “highly concerned” by the conversation.


Propaganda in Tehran reads: “Israel will not see the next 15 years”

The Israeli diplomatic machine is furiously lobbying both the White House and Capitol Hill with a single goal: a “freedom to act” clause that will allow Israel to act unilaterally if it judges Iran has violated the terms of the agreement. Such a clause will be as unthinkable to Iran as it seems necessary in Israel. Tehran is not going to agree to any arrangement that gives its sworn enemy the right to attack it whenever they judge it necessary. To force his way out of this diplomatic corner, Netanyahu is doing what he always does — escalating on the ground to dictate terms at the table. Last week, he ramped up operations in both Lebanon, where a separate ceasefire agreement is in place, and Gaza. On Friday the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) pushed north beyond Lebanon’s Litani river, a line that Netanyahu’s troops had not previously crossed. This has considerably increased the size of the Israeli buffer zone, which is designed to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy militia.

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A strike in Tyre, Lebanon, on Thursday and, below, in Sidon