No sooner had President Donald Trump boasted that world leaders were lining up to “kiss my ass” for a tariff deal, than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaped aboard a plane and flew from Budapest to Washington, to be first in line to announce Israel lifted all tariffs on US imports.
Instead of dropping the tariffs on Israel (which are higher than those on Iran; no tariffs on Russia or North Korea) and having an Oval Office strategy session for destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Israeli leader got a surprise gut punch. He’d been summoned to be told the United States and Iran were about to begin negotiations on a nuclear agreement without him.
The last time a president held nuclear negotiations with Iran, Netanyahu went ballistic. This time, he is remaining quiet. He knew what had happened in February when another Jewish foreign leader had sat in the White House and failed to grovel.
Trump delivered his shocking news with Bibi sitting next to him, where he could not object; it was a warning not to try doing to this president what Netanyahu had done to President Barack Obama when that Democratic president held talks with Tehran.
He must have felt betrayed, knowing how he and Trump had viciously savaged Obama for his 2015 Iranian deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Trump ripped it up three years later, largely at Netanyahu’s urging. Now, in the week before Easter, it looks like resurrection time.
In 2015, Netanyahu mobilized the anti-Obama forces – the Speaker of the House, his Republican troops, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – and personally led the lobbying against the JCPOA. Netanyahu’s dangerously deep plunge into American partisan politics did lasting damage to Israel’s support among Democrats and many American Jews.
That schism has only gotten worse, leaving scant hope that they would try to help Netanyahu block a Trump-Iran agreement.
AIPAC has been Netanyahu’s faithful partner for years in leading the fight against Iran. Will the Republican-leaning lobby be willing to take on a MAGA administration if the next agreement doesn’t meet its longstanding demands?A second round of talks with Iran is expected this weekend in Rome. Trump’s objectives keep shifting and are guaranteed to displease the maximalist Netanyahu.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, seems to keep changing US parameters on a possible deal. Sometimes, it’s the total dismantling of all of Iran’s nuclear, strategic missiles, and terrorism activities; then it’s some but not all. He goes back and forth on uranium enrichment, insists on no weaponization, but is unclear about missiles. His objective, he says, is a “framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East,” whatever that means.
Witkoff is performing a balancing act
Iran is only one part of Witkoff’s portfolio; he is also Trump’s point man in solving the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars. He has no diplomatic experience; his primary qualification, apparently, is nearly 40 years as Trump’s friend, fellow billionaire real estate developer, and golf buddy.
Trump has his own priorities. He’s in a hurry, less concerned about substance than bragging rights. He needs a foreign policy victory in the wake of his disastrous trade wars and his failure to meet his promises to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza on Day One and bring the Israeli hostages home.
You can bet that whatever deal he autographs with his ubiquitous Sharpie, regardless of substance, he will declare the greatest diplomatic achievement in human history. It’s also personal because he is obsessed with trying to show up Obama, who negotiated the now-suspended deal.
The timing seems right for Iran and the United States, thanks to Tehran’s domestic politics. Iran’s economy is in deep trouble, public unrest is spreading, and there is fear that the regime could be toppled. Tehran’s major clients are no longer a significant threat to Israel, which severely damaged its air defenses and other assets.
But the Iranians will have a lot of trouble trusting the man who tore up their last agreement with the United States and tightened the sanctions screws.
Trump sees Iran’s vulnerabilities as an opening to make a deal and move on to something else; a long attention span is not this president’s forte. Netanyahu sees a time to strike a fatal blow, preferably with American help.
That wasn’t the only bad news for Bibi. He also learned that Trump is preparing to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that will not be tied to normalization of relations with Israel, one of the prime minister’s highest priorities.
Under negotiations begun by the Biden administration, the Saudis' desire for help in developing a civilian nuclear industry and acquiring American security guarantees was linked to diplomatic relations with Israel. It was also seen as necessary to win Senate approval of any formal defense treaty.
That fell apart after October 7, when the Saudis added demands unacceptable to Netanyahu, starting with Palestinian statehood.
Look for Trump to announce that nuclear deal next month when he goes to Saudi Arabia on the first foreign trip of his second term (as it was in his first term). He may stop in Israel on the way home, but that has not been announced.
Trump would probably like to stop in Tehran in a dramatic move not unlike his historic – but unproductive – trip to North Korea. But it is unlikely he’d be welcomed there, and certainly no substantive nuclear agreement could be ready for his Sharpie by then. Iran plays a long game; Trump is in a hurry to tweet.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and a former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.