Saeed Naqvi | Advantage Iran? If US Distances From West Asia, Israel in Big Fix

I would never have expected the liberal right-wing Israel-friendly Economist newsmagazine to have on its cover the headline “Advantage Iran”. There is now a willingness in the West’s ruling circles to accept Iran’s upper hand in a conflict with Israel (and the US). This totally contradicts Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s persistent sales pitch with Donald Trump that the joint US-Israel bombing of Iran will cause the Iranian regime to collapse.

Reports have now surfaced of US vice-president J.D. Vance having taken Mr Netanyahu to task for selling a line which had zero chance of proving right. That Mr Vance is now smelling of roses signals a crack in Mr Trump’s White House team. The point of contention was the US fighting Israel’s war with Iran.

This war within the Washington establishment adds to the anxieties over the widening cracks in Mr Trump’s MAGA base. Israel’s war with Iran and Mr Trump’s willingness to take a leadership role is creating turbulence in MAGA.

A fact which makes Mr Trump a willing champion for an Israeli war is his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, being “chummy” with “Bibi” Netanyahu. Mr Kushner is virtually “Bibi’s” man in the White House.

“Bibi” has the kind of influence on the powerful Israeli lobby in the US that no Israeli leader has ever had. Little wonder! He has degrees from Harvard and MIT. Then his experience as Israel’s ambassador to the UN for four years, which kept him amid the world’s second-largest Jewish population after Tel Aviv.

Mr Trump disguises it by his bluster but he is torn between the Israeli lobby and the MAGA base, which sees a betrayal of the “America First” project.

A President with a character as doubtful as Mr Trump’s may not turn out to be as reliable as his MAGA followers expect. The real danger lies elsewhere. A President in his second term can be wilful and self-serving as he sees no occupation of the White House after 2028.

A MAGA ideologue Mr Trump respects, Steve Bannon, told The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes in a podcast that “Trump will be President beyond 2028” because “the American people want that to happen”. How would that be possible when the US Constitution’s 22nd Amendment limits a President’s terms to two.

Mr Bannon said “the American people will find ways around the Constitution”. His hyperbole was stunning. “Trump is like Moses leading his people out of Egypt.”

This excessive praise of Mr Trump, please remember, was before the war with Iran. Mr Trump’s stock is now much lower in MAGA circles primarily because “American blood is being shed for Israel’s war”.

J.D. Vance gave a dressing down to Mr Netanyahu for having misled the President on the war, that once the top leadership was decapitated, Iranians would rise to a man. Israeli intelligence had predicted such an almighty popular uprising not just against the Ayatollahs but in favour of Mr Trump. What happened was exactly the opposite. Iranians rallied around the regime most demonstrably.

Even before this division in the White House inner circle about Israel’s influence on Mr Trump was the rupture in the MAGA base. It became headline news with the murder of a prominent activist and Mr Trump’s friend Charlie Kirk during a talk on Turning Point America at Utah Valley College.

The murder acquired sinister undertones because it took place in the period when Kirk had become vocal against the US-Israeli build-up for a war in Iran. At the heart of the opposition to the war the same fear: that it is Israel’s war.

The needle of suspicion pointed at Israel but the police picked up a 22-year-old, Tyler Robinson, who was heard by witnesses expressing anger at Kirk spreading too much hate.

Fractures appeared in the US Intelligence community, including at the highest levels. Joe Kent, director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, was keen to explore some leads which pointed to a “foreign hand” in Kirk’s murder. He was blocked by the authorities from pursuing this line of inquiry. Kent resigned.

Kent’s resignation opened up a serious problem in the US intelligence community. Kent has acquired star ratings for his candid, full-disclosure interviews with such superstars as Tucker Carlson. A distillate of what he says points to an American intelligence community which may have begun to be dangerously reliant on Israeli intelligence.

This fracture in the intelligence community is no trifling matter. Suddenly, the social media with ideologically motivated journalists like Tucker Carlson have mushroomed to flaunt stories of deep Israeli penetration of the US establishment.

That Mr Trump had turned his back on Europe is well known. Rather than have the albatross of Western decline around America’s neck, MAGA strategised differently: it parted company with Europe to find itself in solo splendour as the world’s richest and militarily the most powerful country. The sole superpower moment had passed most decisively when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. Western decline became the chant which grew in decibel level.

The division in Mr Trump’s close circle, in the MAGA base, within the intelligence community, harsh exchanges with Nato and individual European nations are signs of irritation which has one source: the Iran war. What should alarm “Bibi” is this: all are opposed to the US fighting “Israel’s war”.

If this grows, as it will because of high costs due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and possibility of mounting body bags, should US ground troops be deployed, Mr Trump’s popularity will fall even as the mid-term elections approach in November.

The burden of all this will strain US-Israel relations as never before. The very thought of the United States distancing itself from West Asia will pose for Israel its first real existential crisis.

The writer is a senior journalist and commentator based in New Delhi