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The Iranian position would see it conducted in Iran, the US outside it. The Israelis and US hawks at this point appear to have convinced Trump and Witkoff that compelling Iran to end enrichment within its territory was both a necessary and achievable objective, and they fell for it. Both began issuing belligerent statements, in public that Iran had to accept the US demand or else.

The Iranians, needless to say, would have none of it, and accused Witkoff of shifting the goalposts. One might have expected Witkoff to have learned from the last time Israel convinced him to shift goalposts. In February, it may be recalled, he accepted Netanyahu’s appeals to rewrite the January Israel-Hamas agreement, several weeks after it had been endorsed and come into force, and threatened the Palestinians with severe consequences if they didn’t acquiesce.

It was an offer designed for rejection, was promptly refused, and paved the way for intensified genocide and the thousands of additional dead since March. Having created a crisis in the US-Iran negotiations, Israel and its US partners made their next move. With Trump still seeking to secure an agreement and avoid another US war, he was this time persuaded that an Israeli attack on Iran, akin to its elimination of the Hizballah leadership in Lebanon last year, would make the Iranians more pliable and leave them with no choice but to accept whatever Washington demanded of them.

Trump, who is neither particularly smart or knowledgeable about Iran, endorsed the proposal. He may well have also been persuaded that conducting the attack on the day after his meaningless 60-day deadline for negotiations expired, would convince the Iranians he was a tough negotiator who meant business. In my estimation, this is the background to recent developments, and it successfully bought the White House on board.

In other words, there was indisputably US-Israeli collusion to attack Iran, but it is of fairly recent provenance. Washington did not devise Trump’s approach to Khamenei, and multiple rounds of negotiations with Iran, as camouflage for a military strike that was always the objective. But once it was persuaded that Israeli aggression would serve its actual objective of an agreement with Iran, it participated fully.

Thus far, the US has made it a point to characterize this as an Israeli campaign in which Washington is not directly participating, and has warned Iran of serious consequences if it attacks US installations or assets, while not making similar threats regarding Iranian retaliatory strikes against Israel. For their part, the Iranians have vociferously denounced and condemned the US for its perfidy, but thus far refrained from attacking US targets and limited themselves to threats.

Israel and its devotees in Washington are now engaged in a campaign to convince Trump that the direct participation of the US military in the Israeli campaign is required to “finish the job”. Quickly and painlessly. In their telling the Iranian leadership and Iranian armed forces are in disarray and teetering on the edge, and the population eager and desperate for salvation delivered by Israeli and US high explosives.

On the one hand this reflects the reality that Israel lacks the capacity to achieve Iranian denuclearization or regime change on its own. Yet it also indicates Israel’s concern that Iran, in contrast to Hizballah, successfully absorbed and overcame Israel’s devastating opening salvo, is now retaliating with escalating missile and drone barrages that are making their way through the densest missile defenses on the planet, and appears to have the will and capacity to prosecute Israel’s worst nightmare: a prolonged confrontation in which Israel is also targeted on a daily basis.

The fate of Israel’s war to preserve its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East hangs in the balance. It remains unclear if Trump will decide that Netanyahu failed to deliver his end of the bargain and doesn’t want to be associated with this failure, or will turn on Netanyahu and his US minions for having bamboozled him, or will decide that Israel’s war needs to succeed because the survival of the Islamic Republic and particularly its nuclear program will have intolerable geopolitical consequences for Washington, not least with respect to China.

If the US decides to continue with the policy of supporting Israel without joining the attack on Iran, its posture will become increasingly untenable with the passage of time. And as the days potentially turn into weeks, and the death and destruction inflicted on Iran continues to mount, it will also become increasingly difficult for Iran to pretend it is only fighting Israel.

There has already been considerable criticism within Iran that it was on the receiving end of an Israeli war precisely because it showed restraint in responding to Israel’s provocations in April and October of last year. If it now decides that it runs a similar risk vis-à-vis Washington, it could end up forcing Trump’s hand. The rapidity of developments will require a quick decision in Washington.

Even with Biden gone, under circumstances such as these unconditional support for Israel and total impunity for its actions remains the default option of US foreign policy. With Trump consistently refusing to restrain Israel, he is, ironically given his brand, likely to soon find himself wishing he was instead invading Iraq. END