Israel’s promises of a quick victory have given way to a prolonged conflict and growing frustration in the Oval Office.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met President Donald Trump on Tuesday in what was set to be a tense encounter, as the U.S. leader seeks a path to end the war against Iran.
It was the leaders’ first in-person meeting since they launched the joint offensive in February, after Netanyahu convinced Trump the time was right for regime change in Tehran. Since then, a war that was promised to last weeks has dragged on for five months. Hard-line members of the old Iranian regime have entrenched their rule. And there is no clear exit path as Iran continues to throttle shipping through a vital chokepoint, driving up global energy prices.
Trump has signaled daylight with Netanyahu, saying they were largely — but not totally — aligned on Iran as he seeks a diplomatic path forward despite Israeli desires to press a new offensive. In the United States, the war has been increasingly unpopular with the middle-of-the-road voters who will determine control of Congress in November, as gas prices have surged. Netanyahu, meanwhile, faces October elections and has long told his voters that only he can manage close U.S. relations. A fractured relationship with Trump is a danger to him.
Hours before the meeting, Trump flashed irritation at Israeli reports that Netanyahu planned to show him intelligence about alleged new Iranian activity at Pickaxe Mountain, an underground site believed to be a hard-to-reach shelter for Iran’s nuclear program.
“I heard Bibi announce that,” Trump told Fox & Friends on Tuesday, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname. “I said, ‘Why don’t you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world?’”
Emblematic of Trump’s increasingly dismissive attitude, he also wants to sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and may also allow Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear power, dismissing Israeli concerns that each choice could worsen their security situation.
“We have a little difference, but pretty close,” Trump said Monday about Netanyahu’s approach to Tehran. “Iran took a beating over the last 14 days and they asked us very nicely, ‘Please stop, let’s meet,’ and that’s where we are right now. We’ll see what happens. If we don’t make a deal, we go back to the same thing.”
Noting that Israel “wouldn’t survive without us,” Trump said that “nobody tells me what we should be selling or not. Turkey has been a tremendous ally for me.”
Before Tuesday, Netanyahu had already met with Trump in the White House seven times this term, more than any other world leader. Ahead of the war with Iran, the Israeli leader successfully appealed to Trump’s sense of himself as a historic figure — one who could finally resolve the 47-year challenge of Iran’s theocratic leadership.
But the regime in Tehran has proved far more durable than Netanyahu suggested, leading to frustration in the Oval Office. Days into the conflict, Trump noted the intense Israeli attacks on senior Iranian leadership killed many of the people Washington had identified as potentially more moderate alternatives.
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On Monday, Trump referred to Netanyahu in the past tense, perhaps forecasting his expectation for the election.
“Bibi has been great. I’m not going to say — he was a wartime prime minister. He did very well together,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to Michigan.
Netanyahu traveled this week to Washington for the Trump meeting and to attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a firm ally of Israel who favored maximum military force against Tehran.
“One way or the other, they have to end their nuclear program,” Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday, ahead of his trip to the United States.
Trump has taken an on-again, off-again approach to diplomacy with Iran, signing an interim deal with Tehran last month to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that collapsed within weeks and plunged the two sides into a renewed round of fighting.
But neither side appears to favor a return to full-out war. Iranian leaders are battered by the economic pressure of a naval blockade and want to rebuild after months of U.S. airstrikes. Washington, meanwhile, is confronting dwindling stockpiles of advanced air defense missiles that have been eroded by Iran’s far cheaper drones.
Still, the landing path for a negotiated deal appears narrow. Iranian leaders have little desire to give up the nuclear program that they proved they can defend. And they see the ticking clock to the U.S. midterm elections in November, conscious that the economic pain of high energy prices will only add to their leverage over time.
Trump also met Tuesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has swung into the U.S. leader’s good graces following a rocky resumption of the relationship last year. Zelensky has noted that Russia has been supplying assistance to Iran over the course of this year’s conflict, as the two wars increasingly intertwine.
Trump kept both meetings off-camera, a shift from earlier encounters in which leaders have needed to play for public consumption as Trump has entertained questions from the media. The lower-profile decision had the effect of depriving Netanyahu of a photo op for his reelection campaign — and also dampened potential flare-ups with Zelensky, whose first trip to the Oval Office last year was derailed by an argument with Trump that led to his ejection from the White House.
Like Netanyahu, Zelensky traveled to Washington to pay respects to Graham, who had just returned from a visit to Kyiv when he died of an aortic dissection earlier this month. Trump ally and MAGA die-hard Laura Loomer has been on a high-profile visit to Ukraine following years in which she echoed Russian talking points about the Ukraine war, a notable change of heart that she has said she will take back to Trump.
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