Donald Trump’s desperate calls yesterday to both Israel and Iran not to break the ceasefire he and the Qataris brokered were testimony both to the deal’s fragility and to the difficulty he has in restraining Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
“ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS,” the US president wrote on his social platform, emphasising his anger with Israel in particular. He warned Israel that doing so would be a major violation of the ceasefire and called on it to bring its pilots home. And it did so, after a token hit on a radar station.
While not sparing Tehran from criticism, Trump appeared to recognise that Iranian restraint after the US strike on its nuclear facilities – demonstrated in its half-hearted, well-flagged attack on the Doha US Al Udeid base – had signalled a genuine openness to de-escalate.
Within hours the precarious ceasefire was agreed and much of the surprised world breathed a sigh of relief. There followed uncertainty on whether it was holding, with Trump intervening again.
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That both Israel and Iran would portray the agreement to conclude what Trump calling the “Twelve-day War” as a victory was unsurprising. The claim by Tehran, stripped of its nuclear programme and much of its missile capability, its air defences completely exposed, was a bit of a stretch.
While Netanyahu claims that Israel has achieved “all of the objectives” of its military offensive, his determination on regime change has been thwarted, at least for now.
For the Israeli prime minister even a job half-done represents an important political victory. He has succeeded in his long-cherished ambition to get the US to support his personal imperative to break Iran’s nuclear programme. And he has probably extended significantly his fragile coalition’s life by neutralising an important section of his domestic opposition.
Western leaders in Brussels have trodden warily in responding to the attack on Iran, determined not to antagonise, speaking in one voice just of the need for “de-escalation”.
The Nato leaders will know that an end to fighting between Iran and Israel and fatal damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities would be a win for the US president. But we simply do not yet know whether either of these goals have been achieved. And it remains clear that Trump’s attack on Iran was a huge gamble and obviously in breach of international law.
For the US president , claiming that he has ended the war is clearly a good soundbite. And a fragile ceasefire is in place. But the enmity between Israel and Iran runs deep and the destruction of Gaza continues. Today, Trump claims a victory. Tomorrow, who knows?
