New York Times: Netanyahu Pushed For An American War With Iran.

The Times Reported That Netanyahu Pushed For Yet Another American War In The Middle East.

The latest report in the New York Times has found that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing the Trump administration into a joint American-Israeli war with Iran.

The report noted that:

Israeli officials had recently developed plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites in May. They were prepared to carry them out, and at times were optimistic that the United States would sign off. The goal of the proposals, according to officials briefed on them, was to set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more.

Almost all of the plans would have required U.S. help not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself.

Reportedly, the Trump administration has even started making preparations for this operation. The reports noted that:

The United States also moved two Patriot missile batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as a THAAD, to the Middle East.

Around a half-dozen B-2 bombers capable of carrying 30,000-pound bombs essential to destroying Iran’s underground nuclear program were dispatched to Diego Garcia, an island base in the Indian Ocean.

Moving additional fighter aircraft to the region, potentially to a base in Israel, was also considered.

All of the equipment could be used for strikes against the Houthis — whom the United States has been attacking since March 15 in an effort to halt their strikes against shipping vessels in the Red Sea. But U.S. officials said privately that the weaponry was also part of the planning for potentially supporting Israel in a conflict with Iran.

The report noted that Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, ostensibly over tariffs, was actually primarily to push for war with Iran, writing:

Mr. Netanyahu arrived in Washington on April 7. While the trip was presented as an opportunity for him to argue against Mr. Trump’s tariffs, the most important discussion for the Israelis was their planned strike on Iran.

However, Trump reportedly called off the attack on Iran. The report noted that:

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, presented a new intelligence assessment that said the buildup of American weaponry could potentially spark a wider conflict with Iran that the United States did not want.

A range of officials echoed Ms. Gabbard’s concerns in the various meetings. Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; and Vice President JD Vance all voiced doubts about the attack.

Even Mr. Waltz, frequently one of the most hawkish voices on Iran, was skeptical that Israel’s plan could succeed without substantial American assistance.

The report notes that because of this, Trump decided to negotiate with Iran instead. The report states:

Mr. Netanyahu arrived in Washington on April 7. While the trip was presented as an opportunity for him to argue against Mr. Trump’s tariffs, the most important discussion for the Israelis was their planned strike on Iran.

But while Mr. Netanyahu was still at the White House, Mr. Trump publicly announced the talks with Iran.

But why does Netanyahu really want war with Iran so badly, and will Trump actually follow through on his plan to negotiate with Iran over war?

In this article, I will attempt to answer these questions.

Reshaping The Middle East

Officially, Netanyahu claims to want to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.

But this justification for war is nonsensical, given that top intelligence officials in both the Biden and Trump administrations have confirmed that Iran does not intend to build a nuclear weapon.

Before leaving the Biden administration, CIA head William Burns publicly said that “there is no evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon” stating: “No, we do not see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program”.

Similarly, the current director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has confirmed this publicly, saying that U.S. intelligence “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”.

In reality, Netanyahu’s bloodlust for a war with Iran has more to do with the fact that the country is getting in the way of his greater Israel project.

When Netanyahu first came to power in 1996, a document was sent to him by influential Israeli lobbyists and neocons, who later served in the Bush administration.

The document titled a “clean break” proposed a plan to “reshape the Middle East”.

This included “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq”, weakening “Hizballah, Iran, and Syria”, abandoning the Oslo Accords, and making “hot pursuit into Palestinian-controlled areas”.

After 9/11, this plan was further cemented. The American general Wesley Clark revealed that this plan was devised to destabilize “seven countries in 5 years, “starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran.”

This plan brought about the war in Iraq, the regime change operation in Libya, and the CIA shadow regime change war in Syria.

In the first Trump administration, Netanyahu made a huge step towards his plan of Middle East domination. This was the Abraham Accords.

Touted as a “peace deal,” the Abraham Accords allowed Israel to normalize relations with “the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco” without making any concessions to the Palestinians.

Shortly before October 7th, Netanyahu delivered a speech at the UN, where he devised a plan to take over Gaza and the West Bank, citing the ongoing possibility of normalizing with Saudi Arabia as the lynchpin of this. As Journalist Jeremy Scahill reported:

Just two weeks before the October 7 attacks, the Israeli leader delivered a speech at the UN general assembly in New York, brandishing a map of what he promised could be the “New Middle East.” It depicted a state of Israel that stretched continuously from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Gaza and the West Bank, as Palestinian lands, were erased.

During that speech, Netanyahu portrayed the full normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia as the linchpin of his vision for this “new” reality.

This is what led to the Ocotber 7th attacks, which was used by Israel to justify the ensuing genocide in Gaza.

While portraying the normalization with Saudi Arabia as a “blessing”, he also held up a map of the countries that were a “curse” to his “New Middle East” plan: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran.

After starting the genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu, with backing from the Biden administration, made sure to take out any countries or militias that would get in the way of this plan.

Despite the fact that the Lebanese government got Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire deal with Israel, Netanyahu invaded Lebanon to weaken Hezbollah after getting a secret greenlight from the Biden administration to do so.

The invasion of Lebanon not only weakened one of the key resistance groups backing the Palestinians, but also a key ally of the Syrian government.

The weakening of Hezbollah, along with the billion dollar CIA dirty war , U.S. occupation of Syria’s oil and wheat-rich areas, and starvation sanctions (all policies Israel pushed for), the Syrian government was overthrown in December of 2024.

The Biden administration also bombed the Houthis in Yemen, another key resistance group in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Along with the Saudi Arabian normalization, the final “lynchpin” in Bibi’s plan is the destruction of Iran.

This is also why Netanyahu has always been so adamant about an American war with Iran.

In 2015, Netanyahu travelled to the United States and gave a speech to Congress attempting to block the J.C.P.O.A. (Iran deal) and tried to manufacture consent for an American war with Iran.

Again and again, he tried to hammer home the idea that Iran was a “threat” to America, saying “Iran’s regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also to the peace of the entire world”.

While acknowledging that Iran was in “battle with ISIS”, Netanyahu absurdly claimed that “Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam” and that “Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire first on the region and then on the entire world”, in an attempt to get congress to see Iran as a “threat”.

He went on to absurdly claim that Iran wanted to take over America, saying, “In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America”. He also tried to convince Congress that Iran was an enemy of America, saying, “This regime (Iran) will always be an enemy of America”.

He then used this comical claim that Iran was hell bent on world domination to try to stop the Iran deal, saying, “This is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it.”

Netanyahu doubled down on this in his 2024 speech to Congress.

This time, though, he went even farther in trying to convince Congress that Iran was an enemy of America. He claimed that Iran had “maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world” and said “Iran sees America as its greatest enemy.”

He also claimed that “Iran’s regime has been fighting America from the moment it came to power”, and that “For Iran, Israel is first, America is next”.

He also claimed that Iran was “the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America.”

All of this was propaganda from Netanyahu, in an attempt to get Congress to approve a war with Iran, so that he could carry out the annexation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond unopposed.

Will Trump Follow Through On Diplomacy?

The question left is whether Trump will actually follow through on his claimed intent to negotiate with Iran instead of war, against the wishes of Netanyahu?

His record so far is a worrying sign.

Early on in his administration, Trump reportedly pressured Israel to take the ceasefire deal that Netanyahu later sabotaged.

The Israeli paper Haaretz reported that “ (Steven) Witkoff had forced Israel to accept a plan that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected over the past half year.”

Reportedly, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, met with Netanyahu, who then “returned to Qatar to seal the (ceasefire) deal”.

Haartz reported that Netanyahu was “dragged into an unwanted deal that will end the war and possibly lead to political upheaval at home.”

However, Netanyahu quickly sabotaged this deal, wanting to continue the greater Israel project to curry favor with his far-right base.

Before the ceasefire “fell through,” Haaretz reported that “Israeli sources believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to sabotage the hostage release deal, and the delegation heading to Qatar will not advance Stage 2 of the agreement.”

One insider source told the paper, “Netanyahu is signaling quite clearly that he doesn't want to move to the next phase. He's sending a team without a mandate and without the ability to do anything”.

Another source noted that “Netanyahu knows he doesn't have a government if he proceeds with the deal”, given that he would lose the far right if he followed through with the ceasefire.

A third source said:

The process is working, hostages are being released, but Hamas is doing this with the expectation of a second stage, leading to a [full] cease-fire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Once Hamas realizes there won't be a second stage, they may not complete the first,

Hamas isn't stupid. They see the politicization of the negotiations, the appointment of Netanyahu loyalists Ron Dermer and Gal Hirsch, and the statements from Smotrich and other right-wing ministers threatening to topple the government. They'll understand where this is headed.

Israeli sources have also admitted that Hamas stuck to the ceasefire agreement terms, while Israel violated them.

Three Israeli sources told the New York Times that Hamas’s claims “that Israel has not upheld its promises for the first phase of the cease-fire” were accurate.

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Maariv admitted that “The defense establishment and the IDF say that so far the terrorist organization (Hamas) has not violated the (ceasefire) agreement”.

All Trump had to do to stop this was to send Witkoff to put the same pressure he did earlier on Netanyahu to make him adhere to the ceasefire deal and follow through to phase 2.

Instead, he approved the ceasefire’s sabotage by approving a three billion dollar arms sale to Israel.

Israel used this to commit some of the worst atrocities in recent memory, including a massacre of 200 children and 100 women in one day, the targeting of 15 medics, the targeting of journalists, and the burning of civilians through strikes on refugee tents.

In Yemen, Trump has also backtracked on previous statements from him and members of his administration to please Israel.

When Biden was bombing Yemen for Israel, Trump opposed it. In an interview with podcast host Tim Pool on the campaign trail, Trump said, “They're (the Biden admin) dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don't have to do that. You can talk in such a way where they respect you and they listen to you.”

However, once Israel resumed the genocide in Gaza, the Houthis- a resistance group in Yemen in solidarity with the Palestinians- put a naval blockade on Isreali shipping lanes in the Red Sea in hopes that it would pressure them to end the gencoide.

Instead of taking the diplomatic approach and forcing Netanyahu to adhere to the ceasefire, the Trump administration is bombing Yemen on Israel’s behalf.

The Red Sea shipping lane is of no real significance to American economic interests, and the conflict with the Houthis could easily be ended if the U.S. put pressure on Israel.

This was actually laid out by Michael DiMino, Trump’s top Middle East advisor for the Pentagon, in an article for “Responsible Statecraft”.

In this article, DiMino pointed out:

Washington should start by recognizing that both its economic and national security interests are largely unaffected by Red Sea transit. If it wants, the U.S. can truly afford to do nothing there. Despite a 65% decline in expected freight container volumes transiting the Red Sea, the U.S. saw just a 1% decline in net imports for the month of December.

He also wrote that

The Houthis have repeatedly linked their motive for attacking ships in the Red Sea to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Over the course of the war, Houthi attacks have correlated with events in Gaza. For example, Houthi attacks decreased during the brief truce in November, only to resume afterwards.

Working to increase aid shipments to Gaza would not just help to alleviate the humanitarian crisis there, but would deprive the Houthis of their claimed justification for attacks in the Red Sea and provide the group with an offramp for de-escalation that would also serve to prevent indefinite U.S. participation in a broader regional war. However, this would also necessitate increased diplomatic pressure on the Israeli government to allow more aid into Gaza, a step the Biden Administration remains uninterested in taking.

DiMino ended his article saying, “Put simply, there are no existential or vital U.S. national interests at stake in Yemen, and very little is at stake for the U.S. economically in the Red Sea. Any multi-billion-dollar effort to fight a war in Yemen would render no political, economic, or security benefits to the United States.”

Despite writing this on-point article opposing the bombing of Yemen when Biden was in power, DiMino is now overseeing the exact same policy, advising Trump’s Pentagon in the Middle East.

Despite the fact that there is “very little at stake for the U.S. economically in the Red Sea,” the Houthis are a thorn in the side of Israel’s desire to mass slaughter Palestinians without any opposition from the region.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel’s restarting of the Gaza genocide was “coordinated with the US” and its bombing of Yemen.

The paper noted the reason for this was because “the Houthis, with their ballistic missiles, are the last Iranian proxy that could most viably threaten Israel immediately in retaliation for a return to war”.

The cases of Gaza and Yemen show that the Trump administration will follow Israel’s preferred foreign policy in the Middle East, even if they previously signaled support for diplomacy.

With the 100 million Trump received from Miriam Adelson, his final decision will almost never go against the wishes of Netanyahu.

Given Netanyahu’s deep desire for a war with Iran, this does not bode well for the prospect of the Trump administration’s claim to seek diplomacy with Iran.