The relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is, by their own admission, in good shape. 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 now lasted for three weeks, the goals of the two men seem to be drifting apart, especially regarding the choice of targets. Israeli strikes on the Iranian gas site in South Pars on Wednesday, March 18, did not sit well with Donald Trump, and differences are also beginning to emerge about when each one can claim victory.
Washington and Tel Aviv emphasize a shared goal: to durably reduce Iranian military capabilities, halt the nuclear program, and weaken the mullah regime as much as possible. The two historic allies have clearly divided their tasks: Israel focuses on Iranian leadership, having killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war and many other top officials since, 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 capacity to produce ballistic missiles, as well as its navy and ability to lay mines,” explained the head of American intelligence services, Tulsi Gabbard, in a parliamentary hearing on Thursday.
But the conflict reached a new stage after Israel attacked the Iranian part of the South Pars offshore gas field on Wednesday, the world’s largest known gas reserve. Donald Trump expressed his disagreement on Thursday over a strike that the spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs called a “dangerous and irresponsible step.” “Targeting energy infrastructure is a threat to global energy security,” he regretted in a post on X. Iran retaliated by launching a broad retaliation against the energy resources of neighboring countries, seen by the Islamic Republic as allies of the United States, causing turmoil in financial markets and now raising the specter of a gas war in the region.
Asked about the repercussions of this attack, the American president did not hide his discontent towards his Israeli ally. “I told him not to do that, and he won’t do it anymore,” he said 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 was informed of this strike and had even approved it. Nevertheless, he stated the opposite on his Truth Social network, emphasizing that the United States knew “nothing” about this attack. Rushing to Qatar’s defense, the American president also stated: “Israel will no longer carry out any attacks on the South Pars gas field, of crucial importance, unless Iran makes the imprudent decision to attack an innocent target, namely Qatar.”
Donald Trump maintains close relations with the Arab monarchies of the Gulf, 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 really go wrong – and we know well that Trump is not the sentimental type – then accusations will fly,” anticipates Yossi Mekelberg, from the Chatham House think tank in London, interviewed by AFP.
“The biggest miscalculation of the American administration has been to get caught up in this war,” wrote Badr Albusaidi, Foreign Minister of Oman in The Economist, considering that “this is not the war of the United States, and there is no plausible scenario in which both Israel and the United States would get what they expect.” On Thursday night, Benjamin Netanyahu denied having dragged his historic ally into the conflict, telling journalists: “Does anyone really think we can tell President Trump what to do?”
The divergences between the two countries “are likely to increase over time,” anticipates Dan Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, interviewed by CNN. So, if Donald Trump had, at the beginning of the war, “expressed hope of seeing the Iranian regime overthrown quickly, he now puts less emphasis on this point.” However, the elimination of the mullahs remains an absolute priority for Israel, as the regime poses a direct threat to the Jewish state. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to crush it, just as the Lebanese Hezbollah.
But this Israeli hardline stance poses the risk for the United States of “facing the aftermath of a chaotic scenario after the regime falls, potentially with 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 the transition to a new regime in Iran also means prolonging the war “for several more weeks, or even more,” which will cost the United States “very dearly, in terms of human lives and financial resources,” the former diplomat points out.
The Pentagon is demanding $200 billion in additional budget from Congress, as reported by the Washington Post on Thursday. This is a huge amount as it represents “one-fifth of the annual defense budget, and more than the $188 billion in military aid to Ukraine unlocked by the Biden administration over three years,” as noted by Les Echos. In the absence of clear explanations on the military objectives of the White House, elected officials, mostly Democrats, may try to block this funding request. And some Republicans may be tempted to support this initiative.
Moreover, 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 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 the divisions within the Republican sphere and the inner circle of the American president. Commentator Tucker Carlson, long a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, for example, strongly criticizes the war against Iran and welcomed the resignation of the top American counterterrorism official, as reported by the New York Times.
In the eyes of the American public, the conflict appears unpopular, including among a part of Donald Trump’s electoral base. According to a recent poll conducted by Reuters, 59% of Americans disapprove of this conflict, and 55% of those surveyed oppose deploying any ground troops, regardless of the scale of operations. The conflict has led to an increase in gasoline prices for consumers and turbulence in markets just a few months before the midterm elections in November.
According to Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute in Washington, quoted by AFP, “it is not inconceivable that Donald Trump may consider the cost of this war becoming too high and impeding his domestic policy.” But he must first “find an honorable way out.”
