Relations Between Trump and Netanyahu Strain over Diverging Goals in Iran Conflict
The relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is, by their own admission, strong. They have been fighting hand in hand since the beginning of the war they started on February 28 against Iran and maintain a close, “extraordinary” relationship, according to the American president. The Israeli Prime Minister has made no less than six trips to Washington since the billionaire returned to power in early 2025, including one just a few days before the start of the conflict.
However, as strikes on Iran continue and the fighting has been going on for three weeks now, the objectives of the two men seem to be drifting apart, especially regarding the choice of targets. Israeli strikes on the Iranian gas site of South Pars on Wednesday, March 18, greatly displeased Donald Trump, and differences are beginning to emerge regarding when each one can declare victory.
Washington and Tel Aviv emphasize a shared goal: to permanently impact Iranian military capabilities, halt the nuclear program, and weaken the regime of the mullahs as much as possible. The two historic allies have clearly divided tasks: Israel focuses on the Iranian leadership, having killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war and many other top officials since then, while the United States targets military installations.
“The operations carried out clearly show that the Israeli government has focused on neutralizing Iranian leaders,” while the goals of the American president “are to destroy Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles, its ballistic missile production capacity, as well as its navy and ability to lay mines,” explained Tulsi Gabbard, head of American intelligence services, during a parliamentary committee hearing on Thursday.
But the conflict took a new turn after Israel attacked the Iranian part of the South Pars offshore gas field on Wednesday, the largest known gas reserve in the world. Donald Trump expressed his disagreement on Thursday regarding a strike that the spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs called a “dangerous and irresponsible step.” “Targeting energy infrastructure poses a threat to global energy security,” he regretted in a post on X. Iran retaliated by initiating a broad response against the energy resources of neighboring countries, considered allies of the United States by the Islamic Republic, causing turmoil in financial markets and now raising the specter of a gas war in the region.
Asked about the implications of this attack, the American president did not hide his displeasure with his Israeli ally. “I told him not to do it, and he won’t do it anymore,” he affirmed at the White House, adding: “We act independently, but we get along very well. It’s coordinated. But sometimes he does something, and if I don’t like it … then we don’t do it anymore.”
However, the Wall Street Journal claims that Donald Trump had been informed of this strike and had even approved it. Yet he claimed the opposite on his Truth Social network, emphasizing that the United States knew “nothing” about this attack. Coming to the defense of Qatar, the American president also stated: “Israel will no longer carry out any attacks on the strategically important South Pars gas field, unless Iran takes the reckless decision to attack an innocent target, namely Qatar.”
Donald Trump has close relations with the Arab Gulf monarchies, which serve as bases for American troops and are therefore targeted by Iran. “When everything is going well, everyone is happy (…) If things start to go really wrong – and we know that Trump is not sentimental – then accusations will fly,” anticipates Yossi Mekelberg of the Chatham House think tank in London, interviewed by AFP.
“The greatest miscalculation of the American administration has undoubtedly been to get involved in this war,” wrote Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, in The Economist, considering that “this is not the United States’ war, and there is no plausible scenario in which Israel and the United States both get what they want.” Thursday night, Benjamin Netanyahu denied having dragged his historic ally into the conflict, telling journalists: “Does anyone really think you can tell President Trump what to do?”
The differences between the two countries “are likely to intensify over time,” anticipates Dan Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, interviewed by CNN. Thus, while Donald Trump had, at the beginning of the war, “expressed hope to see the Iranian regime toppled quickly, he now puts less emphasis on this point.” However, the elimination of the mullahs remains Israel’s absolute priority, as the regime poses a direct threat to the Jewish state. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to bring it down, just like the Lebanese Hezbollah.
But this Israeli hard-line stance risks the United States “facing the repercussions of a chaotic scenario after the regime falls, potentially leading to a civil war in Iran, instability that could spread and affect neighboring countries, as well as migratory flows that could destabilize Europe and Gulf allies,” predicts Dan Shapiro. Aiming at all costs for a transition to a new regime in Iran also means prolonging the war “for several more weeks, or even longer,” which will “cost the United States dearly, both in terms of human lives and financial resources,” underscores the former diplomat.
The Pentagon is asking Congress for an additional $200 billion in funding, as reported by the Washington Post on Thursday. This is an enormous amount, representing “one-fifth of the annual defense budget, and more than the $188 billion in military aid allocated to Ukraine by the Biden administration over three years,” pointed out Les Echos. With no clear explanations on the White House’s military objectives, elected officials, mainly Democrats, could try to block this funding request. And some Republicans may be tempted to support this initiative.
Furthermore, several senior American officials are skeptical of the very purpose of this war. Like Joe Kent, who was appointed by Donald Trump to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, and who abruptly announced his resignation on Tuesday, criticizing an unjustified intervention. “Iran posed no imminent threat,” he wrote in his letter published on X.
This unexpected resignation highlights divisions within the Republican sphere and among President Trump’s inner circle. Commentator Tucker Carlson, a long-time supporter of Donald Trump, for example, vigorously criticizes the war against Iran and praised the resignation of the senior American counterterrorism official, as reported by the New York Times.
From the American public’s point of view, the conflict appears unpopular, including among a portion of Donald Trump’s electoral base. According to a recent Reuters poll, 59% of Americans disapprove of this conflict, with 55% of respondents declaring opposition to deploying any ground troops, regardless of the scale of the operations. The conflict has led to an increase in gasoline prices for consumers and turbulence in the markets just months before the midterm elections in November.
According to Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute in Washington, interviewed by AFP, “it is not inconceivable that Donald Trump may consider the cost of this war becoming too high and hindering his domestic policy.” But he must first “plot an honorable way out.”
