Hours before President Trump was set to announce a U.S.-Iran ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Israeli jets struck Beirut — blowing up the exit ramp from a war that cost Americans blood and treasure while delivering nothing for our security.
The Iran war was sold as a six-week, Venezuela-style in-and-out. It dragged past 112 days. Now Trump wants out — gas prices are up, midterms loom, and the public has had enough. But Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't want out. He never did.
Netanyahu called the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes something he had "been hoping to do for 40 years, to strike the terrorist regime squarely in the face," CBS News reported. This wasn't about American security. This was a foreign leader's lifetime ambition — and he finally found a U.S. president willing to sign the check.
Trump was blunt about the sabotage. "What the f*** are you doing?" he asked Netanyahu, according to Fox News' Trey Yingst, as reported by CBS. "Why did Bibi have to do a fg attack?" Trump told Axios. "I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fg judgement."
He has every reason to be angry. Under the U.S.-Iran deal, as Al Jazeera reported, the U.S. commits itself and "its allies" to the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon" — and a $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran. That's $300 billion in commitments tied to a deal Netanyahu just tried to blow up from the air.
Israel's response to the agreement was immediate. Al Jazeera reported Israeli forces pounded Lebanon, killing at least 47 people on Friday alone. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared that "all of Lebanon must burn."
Follow the money, and follow the politics. Netanyahu faces an election by October and a corruption trial waiting when he leaves office. As The Economist's Anshel Pfeffer told CBS, "Netanyahu, for political reasons, can't end this war because he hasn't delivered these incredible promises, and because he doesn't want to face a reckoning with the Israeli public." The war is his shield against accountability — and American blood and treasure prop it up.
This is the same pattern establishment Washington has enabled for decades. CBS noted that Bill Clinton said the same thing about Netanyahu in 1996: "Who the f**k does he think he is?" Different president, same story — a foreign leader puts his political survival above American interests, and Washington lets him.
Israeli pollster Dahlia Scheindlin told Al Jazeera that Israelis "believe the war ended prematurely and that something went wrong with the grand plan." Only a small minority believe their country won. The war failed on its own terms. But Netanyahu keeps bombing — because peace means facing his voters, and his judges.
Al Jazeera reported a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah may have been agreed by Friday evening, likely under U.S. pressure. Whether it holds is another question. The deeper question is how long Washington will let a foreign leader's political problems dictate American foreign policy — and how many more Americans will pay before it stops.
