Trump Lashes Out at Bibi
Sid Shniad
John J. Mearsheimer
June 2
On 2 June 2026, I was on “Judging Freedom” talking with the Judge about President Trump’s recent profanity-laced phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu where Trump expressed real anger at Netanyahu for not stopping Israel’s brutal war in Lebanon. The reason Trump is so angry with Netanyahu is that the president is desperate to create a ceasefire with Iran and begin negotiations toward a final settlement, but he cannot get a ceasefire with Iran in place until all the fighting in Lebanon stops. Iran, which is demanding a ceasefire in Lebanon, has cleverly linked the US-Iran negotiations to what is going on between Israel and Hezbollah But Israel does not want negotiations with Iran to move forward, and unsurprisingly its leaders see a continuation of the war in Lebanon as a way to thwart a US-Iran deal. So the closer Trump is to securing a deal with Iran, the greater the likelihood Israel will ratchet up its campaign of murder and destruction in Lebanon. Israeli operations in Lebanon have infuriated Trump, which is why he read Netanyahu the riot act and why the White House leaked the story about the angry phone call to Axios. Whether Trump ultimately forces Israel to accept a genuine ceasefire in Lebanon and gets it to stick to that ceasefire is an open question. My sense is that the only circumstance under which Trump will leave Israel with no choice but to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon is if he feels that the international economy is close to tanking. Absent a serious chance of that happening, Israel will continue to cause Trump trouble in Lebanon as a way of stymying movement toward an agreement between Iran and the US. All of this shows what a huge strategic liability Israel is for the US. In essence, Netanyahu played a central role in dragging the US into this losing war and now it won’t let the US settle the conflict.  |