Netanyahu and the Obstacles to His American Calculations in Lebanon, Iran, and Turkey

The New York Times concludes that “U.S. President Donald Trump appears hesitant and without options,” and that he is “a person whose behavior cannot be predicted. He boasts that he keeps allies and adversaries in a constant state of confusion.”

In reality, what distinguishes U.S. President Donald Trump from other American presidents is that he resorts to the “military option,” one his predecessors had hesitated to undertake.

The New York Times also asserts that President Trump is currently suffering from deep frustration, making his behavior even more erratic, citing sources among his close aides. One Middle East specialist, former diplomat Aaron David Miller, commented on President Donald Trump’s scrapping of the historic agreement signed by the U.S. energy secretary with Saudi Arabia to supply it with nuclear energy technology less than 24 hours later, in a move that surprised the Saudis, unless it joined the “Abraham Accords” and recognized Israel.

In his comment, he concluded that Trump angered the Saudis, pleased Benjamin Netanyahu, and handed Iran powerful propaganda material to say that “making deals with the United States is a futile task because they can expire at any moment.”

Notably, before heading to Washington to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, the Israeli prime minister announced that he would not submit to American pressure demanding a military withdrawal from Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Here, he is betting on the “hesitation” of the master of the White House and trying once again to draw him back into renewed war on Iran, on the grounds that he possesses “precise and dangerous information” about Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, about the unsoundness of U.S. policy in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, and about the error of the American wager on Turkey in the region and the need not to supply it with F-35 aircraft.

Netanyahu’s calculations are not necessarily ones to which U.S. President Donald Trump will respond. They face major international objections because of the Israeli government’s violations of international law and human rights, its policies of collective punishment, the destruction of homes and bulldozing of land in Gaza and southern Lebanon, and the establishment of settlements in the West Bank.

Nor do these calculations align with the American orientation that views Israel as a Western and American creation in the region that should not stand in the way of U.S. strategy in the Middle East and its countries. It is a strategy that guarantees Israel’s existence outside policies of geographic expansion and political domination, especially since President Trump is betting on a central role for Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in meeting American needs in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and in forming a “bulwark” against Russian and Chinese influence. This is something Netanyahu cannot provide. In this context, the objections of Lebanese President General Joseph Aoun, along with the Lebanese military establishment, to the practices of the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, and their view that these violate the formula of the American-Lebanese-Israeli tripartite framework, are well founded—particularly as the Lebanese president remains committed to the American wager and the U.S. guarantees it entails to protect Lebanese sovereignty and secure a gradual Israeli withdrawal from all of southern Lebanon while ensuring the deployment of the Lebanese army.

The truth is that there remains, for the time being, some room for Israeli mischief, linked to the Israeli elections. This is one aspect President Trump may take into account under certain conditions. That is especially so given Iran’s openness to accepting a resumption of negotiations and to arrangements for American stability and peace in the region—arrangements that Tehran believes are obstructed by Israeli policies, as Israel possesses nuclear weapons and a project aimed at fragmenting the region and dominating its states. This is something accepted neither by Iran, nor Turkey, nor Egypt, nor the Gulf states, nor Russia, nor China, nor even America’s deep state.

Washington has once again laid out plans for a security alliance and water and oil partnerships between Iraq and Turkey, and for new oil supply lines—not for Netanyahu to sabotage them with short-sighted Israeli calculations. This is a point examined at length in a serious and in-depth study by the Babylon Center for Studies.

Abdel Hadi Mahfouz