The bully and the schemer
Trump and Netanyahu may deserve each other. But in the battle against Iran and its proxies, and in the struggle for the democratic, law-abiding, Jewish-majority Israel, we need better
...Which brings us back to Trump’s renewed dissing of Netanyahu.
Like any playground bully, the US president is turning on what he perceives as a weak and vulnerable target, while obsequiously cozying up to what he sees as more dangerous aggressors.
While publicly declaring that Netanyahu will do what he’s told, he repeatedly praises the mass-murdering leaders of Iran as reasonable, rational and “very smart,” and on Sunday even hailed the new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, for his “bravery” in ostensibly managing to lead Iran despite having been “pretty badly injured” in the war’s initial Israeli air strikes.
The self-styled great deal-maker appears to be catastrophically out of his depth in negotiating with Iran, employing a non-strategy that might best be described as a mixture of threats, bluster and capitulation. He is seeking assurances that the regime won’t seek nuclear weapons as though any such pledges are of value, relenting on the imperative for a complete, permanent halt to Iranian uranium enrichment, and lately asserting that removing Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium is not really necessary because it is “entombed.”
All this as he implores Tehran to agree to an initial framework deal to get Hormuz reopened, while pushing off all the nuclear weapons-related issues for later negotiations — negotiations in which he would have little leverage because he will have signed an accord committing to the permanent end of the war.