Will Netanyahu Pull the Felon Deeper Into War with Iran

By most reports Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the players that convinced the Felon to launch the misguided (at best) war against Iran. Netanyahu seemingly wants endless war to enhance his reelection chances in October and also protect himself from potential prosecution at home and likely duped the Felon into ignoring the advice of his own intelligence and military advisers.  Now, Netanyahu is coming to Washington, DC, and the White House yet again and some fear he will seek to convince the Felon through false claims and flattery to widen the war and further damage both America's economy and that of the entire world.  Many in the MAGA "America First" base are not pleased, yet seem to still cling to some semblance of belief that the Felon will put America's interest first rather than take actions to please his own ego and a desperate desire to be perceived as "winning" in a war that the vast majority of Americans oppose. Meanwhile, oil prices remain up everyone is holding their breath to see if the Red Sea gets closed down by Iran's allies in Yemen. The problem is that the Felon has few good options to extricate the nation from his foolish war.  A Piece at Politico looks at where we find ourselves:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during his last in-person meeting at the White House, reportedly sold President Donald Trump on starting a war with Iran. Now, the GOP’s America First wing fears he’s about to pitch the president on ramping up attacks.

“I think all of President Trump’s most ardent non-‘Israel First’ supporters are furious,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “Netanyahu has had twice as many visits to the White House in 18 months as Churchill had in all of World War II — with every one of them a disaster for America First.”

The two men are set to meet Tuesday morning for the first time since the two countries attacked Iran in February, with Netanyahu in Washington to attend the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. The meeting comes at a moment of tension between the two allies: While Trump has long defended Israel, he has grown increasingly willing to publicly criticize Netanyahu for being too aggressive with Lebanon.

It also arrives at a pivotal moment in a war that has dragged on for five months, with the U.S. teetering between attempts at peace and a more aggressive phase of war.

Many of the president’s anti-interventionist allies had hoped the latest ceasefire attempt would lead to a permanent end to the conflict. Instead, they’re grappling with the possibility that Netanyahu, who is visiting the U.S. for the seventh time since Trump took office last year, may instead push the president into a new, more durable phase of war that could leave the U.S. embroiled in conflict in the Middle East for months, if not years.

The meeting comes as new polling shows that a growing share of the president’s base no longer believes the war is worth its economic costs. And Republicans are increasingly resigned to the fact that the war will likely still be hanging over voters in some form when they head to the polls in November.

Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine, described the meeting as “DEFCON 1.” “Netanyahu is going to argue for the essential logic of escalation, which — if Trump is not willing to give the [memorandum of understanding] a chance and if Trump is not willing to walk away from the conflict entirely without a resolution — then I think we probably will escalate, and that’s what we’ve been seeing these last couple of weeks,” Mills said. . . . . “Netanyahu is going to push his agenda, which I don’t think in this instance necessarily is compatible with our interests . . .

Netanyahu has not been to the White House since the launch of the war, despite months of efforts to secure another invitation. Until Monday, the White House had not publicly confirmed the meeting, details of which were only just finalized as officials prepared for Graham’s funeral.

Strikes between the U.S. and Iran remain paused, though Trump on Monday threatened that the U.S. would “go back to doing what we were doing” if the latest attempt at diplomacy fails. Netanyahu could ultimately shoulder the burden of blame if the war continues to drag on — potentially deepening strains between the two allies.

“Netanyahu is kind of a problem-maker at the moment, right? This war has consumed the last five and a half months or so. There’s not a clear solution to it,” said a former official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics of the meeting. “Trump probably, publicly or not, blames Netanyahu partially or associates him with a thing going badly. It’s not like it has to be his fault. It’s that he’s associated with it. And the president’s pissed off about it.”

Trump, who faces increasing pressure at home to bring the war to an end ahead of November’s midterms, has grown increasingly vocal in his frustration with Netanyahu.

The Israeli prime minister, who faces reelection in October, needs Tuesday’s meeting to understand Trump’s next steps — whether he intends to return to the memorandum of understanding or move toward further escalation, said Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special representative for Iran in Trump’s first term.

But Netanyau, who has built much of his political identity around confronting Iran’s security threat, also enters Tuesday’s meeting from a position of significant political risk as the two leaders are poised to broach several difficult subjects, including Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

“The stakes are higher for Netanyahu both because Trump, not he, is the decision-maker here,” Abrams said. “And because his job and not Trump’s is on the ballot.”