Martin Jay
The danger for Trump is that Israel gets hit harder by both Hezbollah and Iran.
Analysts often argue that Trump has dug himself into a trap in Iran which he can't get out of, which of course is true. But there is a bigger issue coming his way that could either pull him out of the trap altogether or force him to dig even deeper: Bibi.
The relationship between these two men is often written about at length by Western pundits, usually within the context of who controls whom. But never before will a relationship between a U.S. president and an Israeli leader be put to the test as it will between Trump and Bibi in the coming weeks.
Israel's PM is in even more of a quagmire than Trump. Trump might lose the majority in both houses when the midterms come, but he will at least remain in office, albeit with impeachment proceedings probably underway. For Netanyahu, the clock is ticking at a much faster rate, and he may easily find himself out of office before November and probably living in exile to avoid corruption charges that have, until now, been placed on hold. Bibi has a number of quite seismic challenges ahead of him in the coming months, but chiefly how to keep the war in Lebanon going, which maintains a state of emergency in Israel and therefore justifies why his graft case can be put on hold. Lebanon is really key to his survival, although it's hard to see how long he can keep the campaign there going while bombing Iran, while the U.S. sits on the sidelines and merely becomes a spectator. Quite apart from being gravely ill, Bibi does not have the political support in Israel now and would not win an election with his present coalition. The Likud party of today doesn't have the support it had when Bibi took office, and most analysts agree that he can't come back as PM when elections come around.
But there are other serious questions that present themselves to whoever is running Israel.
Israel simply cannot keep up the level of military engagement with either Iran or Lebanon. The resources are not there, and what is seriously worrying military chiefs who talk to Bibi is that the IDF is starting to fall apart, due to poor discipline, in-fighting, and generally low morale following Gaza and now Lebanon, where it is losing 10 men each day due to its fighting with Hezbollah, whose fighters are having great success with fibre optic drones. Desertions in the IDF are worrying defence chiefs, and it is becoming clear that Israel has overstretched itself and cannot possibly continue its operations that work to expand what has become known recently as 'greater Israel' in Lebanon, Syria, and certainly not in Iran. There just aren't the resources, and the price to pay for these ambitious endeavours is becoming clearer and clearer, nowhere more so than in Lebanon.
Military chiefs who met with Netanyahu recently pointed out that the IDF isn't very strong internally and may well cease to function if desertions continue at the present rate and it continues to suffer the losses it is presently dealing with in Lebanon.
And yet, while in recent days we have seen Israel once again derail any chance of a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, Netanyahu has no choice but to keep the IDF in Lebanon, presenting Trump with an even bigger headache than he originally had just a couple of weeks ago, when getting a deal done seemed simpler. He never factored in that Netanyahu would go rogue, following his 'order' to him to stop fighting in Lebanon, which created huge protests on the streets in Tel Aviv. Interestingly, it is the Israeli public who are trapped in a delusional mindset where they believe the ability and resources of the state are unlimited and that Lebanon must be controlled.
And so the orders have stopped, as Trump doesn't want to humiliate himself further when it becomes clear that Bibi is not taking them. In recent days, even mainstream media are commenting on the fact that the war has a new dynamic now, with most reporting that Israel is now on its own and that Iran has the upper hand with the West. The waiting game works for Iran, but it doesn't work for either Trump or Netanyahu.
Trump's even bigger headache with Iran is that Bibi continues now independently and that Iran hits U.S. allies in the region even harder. The response from Iran to strike Israel recently was unprecedented, in that it came after Tehran insisted that Israel end its campaign there, citing Lebanon as part of a broader ceasefire. Although it was hardly reported, the move by Iran to strike Israel, based on Israel attacking its ally, was unprecedented and a game changer.
One idea that Trump might be chewing over is to let Bibi run out of ammo. While Iran has not only restocked its missile supply, more importantly, it has also upgraded them technically speaking, and so the latest ballistic missiles have even greater capabilities. For Israel, one of the reasons why its public is on the streets calling for more war is that they are victims of their own propaganda. Israeli press recently reported that Iran's arsenal was down, which, according to seasoned and well-informed analysts like Alistair Crooke, is not at all the case. The former UK diplomat who has spent time in Iran claimed recently in an interview that Iran has not only replaced its missiles lost previously but has shed a new skin, militarily speaking, and is now working with even more lethal weapons, with many of the missile bunkers operating perfectly after being repaired following the initial 'bunker buster' operations of the U.S..
If Israel simply can no longer send salvos over to Iran at some point, Trump will regain the upper hand once again. The same argument goes for Lebanon, where the IDF is struggling to build and hold its own buffer zone - something that has never shown any signs, today or pre-2000, of success when it held land in the south of Lebanon up to the Litani River, in an operation originally called 'Grapes of Wrath'.
Trump might well factor in that his friend Bibi hasn't got long in office, and it may well be the IDF's losses in Lebanon that could be the key factor which brings people to the streets again to demand he step down. The morale of IDF troops is in fact paramount to the entire architecture of what Israel is attempting to do beyond its own borders and to Netanyahu's survival. Opinion polls in the U.S. are suggesting that the American public are turning against Israel, which could be something Trump might capitalise on.
The danger for Trump is that Israel gets hit harder by both Hezbollah and Iran, and that he is put in a position where America is called upon to save this tiny Jewish state. It will be very hard for Trump to do nothing, given the history of how America has always played such a supporting role with its main ally in the region. The key will be how to save Bibi to save himself, if such a possibility presents itself. Bibi's entire survival hangs by a thread and can collapse within a second if one IDF unit in Lebanon is slaughtered - which could trigger a mutiny within the military. And doesn't Hezbollah know it.