The cease fire between Iran and Israel ended Sunday as the Islamic state sent missiles to attack the Jewish state after it struck Lebanon. America’s convicted felon president Donald Trump told both countries to stop the attacks but they fired on each other again on Monday.
Israel attacked an Iranian petrochemical complex after Trump demanded that both sides stop while Iranian drones attacked.
Trump, in an interview with The Financial Times, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “won’t have any choice” but to accept whatever agreement Washington may reach with Iran.
“He won’t have any choice,” Trump claimed, “I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.”
Trump tells the FT that Iran’s strikes have not changed his intent to reach a diplomatic solution with Iran, saying: “It’s not going to have any impact on the deal… We’ll see how it ends up. But they [the missile strikes on Israel] were attacks that did not kick at all. It’s one of those things that’s been going for 3,000 years, or 47 years, depending on how you count.”
The FT says Trump didn’t indicate a deal with Iran was imminent, though the president told Fox News earlier tonight that he was days away from reaching an agreement before the attacks took place.
“I think the deal is going on,” Trump says. “We’ll see what happens,” he adds, saying “The deal may make it on its own merit, or not, but this will not have any effect on it.”
Trump reiterates comments he made earlier today that he would turn to military force if a deal is not reached, saying: “[Not reaching a deal] means [one of] two things… Number one, it would mean that possibly we would go in and take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily. Or it would just mean that we would keep the [US naval] blockade on Iran, because the blockade has been probably more powerful than any attack that was ever made on that country.”
Adds Leo Sands of The New York Times:
President Trump offered a glimpse into his private conversations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, suggesting that the two men had a broadly positive rapport but that recent disagreements had prompted the president to call the Israeli leader “crazy.”
“We’ve worked very well together,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Post, summarizing their working relationship as close and constructive.
But Mr. Trump confirmed that he had repeatedly used expletives to convey his frustration on a recent phone call with Mr. Netanyahu over Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon when asked about an Axios report on the conversation between the two men.
“I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” he said, referring to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon.
Mr. Trump made his comments after reports of a growing split between the two leaders as the war with Iran, which began with joint U.S.-Israeli attacks, drags on. The Trump administration has excluded Israel from negotiations to end the conflict and the president has publicly urged Israel to stop fighting with Hezbollah.
On The Hill news website, writer Tara Suter reports:
Former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday warned that President Trump’s actions in the war against Iran could spark a nuclear arms race.
“Whatever deal President Trump makes with Iran, his often-contradictory decisions during the conflict have laid the groundwork for more nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,” Bolton said in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal that was published Sunday.
“If the race for nuclear weapons widens and accelerates, the region will become more unstable, heightening risks for the entire world,” he added, in his piece titled “A Bad Iran Deal Could Spark a Nuclear Arms Race.”
The war in Iran, which has strained relations with U.S. allies and stressed the global economy, recently passed the three-month mark, with recent polling finding many Americans are against the fighting.
Even Republicans are saying Trump is in over his head with the war with Iran. Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, calls the fragile cease fire a “disaster.”
“Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!” he adds.
