Trump may survive the humiliation of the Iran deal. Netanyahu will not

 Benjamin Netanyahu, the biggest loser in last week’s preliminary deal to halt the US-Israel-Iran war, will be remembered – and reviled – as the man who put the Middle East to the sword. Whether the “problem” was Hamas in Gaza, illegal West Bank land seizures, supposed Israeli-Arab fifth columnists, peace campaigners’ aid flotillas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, hostile militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, or Tehran’s hardline Islamic regime, the Israeli leader’s “solution” was always the same: extreme, often lawless violence that invariably made matters worse.

The unprovoked, illegal war against Iran was the ultimate expression of the Netanyahu doctrine – the disproportionate application of brute force. Predictably, it too, has failed. Donald Trump is desperately arguing that the ceasefire memorandum he signed in Versailles (of all places!) is not the lame capitulation it so self-evidently is. But while the US president may survive this humiliation – despite global scepticism and mockery – the likely consequences of the debacle for Netanyahu, his brother-in-harms, are career-ending serious. In many respects, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is already yesterday’s man.

His political obituary reads like a criminal indictment. For decades, Netanyahu resisted a two-state solution with the Palestinians. He failed to prevent the terrible Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023, then visited genocidal vengeance on Gaza. He clung to power by giving far-right politicians key government roles, to his country’s lasting chagrin and shame. He undermined the internationally endorsed 2015 nuclear pact with Iran, whose subsequent repudiation by a credulous Trump led directly to this year’s disastrous, self-defeating conflict.

Yet the main reason Netanyahu is now hurtling towards political oblivion, even as autumn elections approach, is none of the above. It’s because he has poisoned and perhaps fatally weakened the vital US-Israel “special relationship”. He and Trump are barely on speaking terms. Fairly or not, the White House, and an American public already shocked and alienated by Israel’s war on Gaza, blame him for drawing the US into an unwinnable fight on the basis of glib predictions of easy victory and regime collapse. And now that peace is at hand, they fear Netanyahu is sabotaging it by continuing the war in Lebanon.

In the decades after Israel’s independence in 1948, the two countries often clashed – over Suez in 1956, over Israel’s Arab wars, peace plans, borders and settlements. But when the cold war ended, and the Soviet threat evaporated, their strategic and security interests, underpinned by shared democratic values, increasingly converged. US military aid to Israel mushroomed, as did the Washington lobbying power of its supporters. The US became Israel’s chief defender and indispensable ally – Israel America’s leading regional partner.

Speaking after the G7 summit last week, Trump eviscerated Netanyahu’s red lines. He said Iran must be allowed to enrich uranium, had a right to ballistic missiles, and should be given back billions of dollars in frozen assets as part of a broader lifting of sanctions. The US also backed Iran’s demand for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Lebanon – a position angrily underscored by vice-president JD Vance, who ordered Netanyahu to stop fighting and toe the line. The US is “the only powerful ally” Israel has left, Vance warned ominously. By any conventional measure, this open confrontation is catastrophic for Israel.

Netanyahu is cornered. If he tries to demonstrate sovereign freedom of action by defying Trump, he could provoke Iran into restarting the war and wreck the peace deal. After Tehran pulled out of follow-up talks on Friday in Switzerland because of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah, US officials claimed the two sides had agreed to reinstate an earlier ceasefire. Yet if Netanyahu tamely submits to Trump’s diktats, especially over a full Lebanon troop withdrawal, any remaining credibility he has with voters and his far-right allies may be lost. Either way, the “special relationship” is unlikely to recover quickly.

The possible ramifications of this rupture are giddying. It may come to mark the high-point of Israeli exceptionalism, the collapse of Netanyahu’s dream of a greater Israel as the dominant Middle East power – and the end of unquestioning US support and unconditional military aid. It could scupper hopes of extending Trump’s Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that are busy recalibrating postwar loyalties. Trump’s unjust Gaza “peace plan” may deservedly hit the dust. It could be the moment Iran’s isolation finally eases, when Tehran comes in from the cold. Crucially, Israel will be less, not more, secure.

Netanyahu staked everything on a comprehensive, legacy-boosting victory over his Iranian nemesis – and he lost, badly. Now he must reap the whirlwind. Don’t make more trouble or more excuses, Bibi. Don’t wait to be pushed or sacked. Resign.