Once Trump’s Co-Pilot Against Iran, Netanyahu Is Now a Mere Passenger

[Right_in_Virginia]

Once Trump’s Co-Pilot Against Iran, Netanyahu Is Now a Mere Passenger
NY Times, May 23, 2026

In the run-up to the Feb. 28 attack on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was not only in the Situation Room with President Trump, he was leading the discussion, predicting that a joint U.S.-Israeli strike could very well lead to the demise of the Islamic Republic.

Just a few weeks later, after those sanguine assurances proved inaccurate, the picture was starkly different. Israel was so thoroughly sidelined by the Trump administration, two Israeli defense officials said, that its leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop on truce talks between the United States and Iran.

Starved of information from their closest ally, the Israelis have been forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime, said the two officials. Like others for this article, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel, and especially for the prime minister, who faces an uphill re-election battle this year.

Mr. Netanyahu has long sold himself to Israeli voters as a kind of Trump whisperer, uniquely capable of enlisting and retaining the president’s support. In a televised speech early in the war, he portrayed himself as the president’s peer, assuring Israelis that he talked to Mr. Trump “almost every day,” exchanging ideas and advice, “and deciding together.”

He had led Israel to war in February with grand visions of achieving a goal he has pursued for decades: stopping Iran’s push for nuclear weapons once and for all. As the war began with a stunning decapitation of much of the government in Tehran, it seemed as though an even more grandiose dream might come true: the toppling of the regime.

But many in Mr. Trump’s inner circle had always viewed the idea of regime change as absurd. And it wasn’t long before American and Israeli priorities began to diverge more, especially after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring and pressuring Mr. Trump into agreeing to a cease-fire.

Far from vanquished, the Islamic Republic has behaved as though it won the war, merely by surviving it.


More: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/world/middleeast/israel-trump-iran.html

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA

Within two weeks, it became clear that the war would not produce instant victory, as Mr. Trump had hoped. The White House, and some Israeli leaders, put aside their hopes for regime change, and Mr. Trump turned his attention toward ending the fighting.

He had viewed Mr. Netanyahu as a war ally, but not as a close partner when it came to negotiating with the Iranians, American officials familiar with his thinking said; in fact, he considered Mr. Netanyahu someone who needed to be restrained when it comes to resolving conflicts.

Israel soon found itself demoted from equal partner to something more akin to a subcontractor to the U.S. military.

[Hoodat]

The hatred for Bibi is strong in this one.