America’s war or Israel’s? The debate shaking Washington over Iran

As the United States deepens its confrontation with Iran, a contentious debate has erupted in Washington and within Donald Trump’s own political base: is this America’s war, or Israel’s?

The question gained traction after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that Washington anticipated an Israeli strike and moved pre-emptively to protect American forces in the region.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.

His remarks have fuelled criticism among some analysts and political voices who argue that the US strategy is increasingly shaped by Israeli military decisions, especially after a Pentagon briefing report stated that there was no intelligence suggesting Tehran would attack the US. 

“This is Netanyahu's battle but Trump is using Americans to fight it. For Netanyahu, Trump was the biggest opportunity to finally get the US to go to war with Iran,” Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tells TRT World. 

While Trump has taken a big risk by launching a war on Iran, drawing much criticism on him, Netanyahu, the Zionist state’s longest-serving prime minister, empowered by his far-right allies, faces no real pressure in Israel. 

“Netanyahu is definitely benefiting politically, inside Israel, so far. For the Israeli (Jewish) public he is the magician again and the saviour of Israel and the Jews,” Alon Liel, a former director general in the Israeli foreign ministry, tells TRT World. 

“I do not think Trump is benefiting politically in the US from the Iran war,” Liel adds. 

Netanyahu pressure 

Abdi notes that while Netanyahu saw the Trump presidency as a major opportunity to confront Iran, he also feared that the American leader would strike a deal with Tehran, something he viewed as “an even bigger threat than Iran's nuclear programme” for Israel.  

“Anytime the US and Iran appeared on course for a deal in Trump's second term, Netanyahu has flown to Washington to convince him out of it and pressure him into war,” Abdi says. 

“It appears the Israelis strong-armed or out-maneuvered Trump.”  

Netanyahu has denied he dragged Trump into the war with Iran. 

Abdi also draws attention to a possible scenario in which Trump’s hyperactive style might play a role in his involvement in the war against Iran when the Israelis said they had a clear shot at eliminating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and were moving forward. 

“Trump's ego wouldn't let him stay out of it,” he says.

While Trump denied that the Israelis might have forced his hand to launch the Iran war, he does not reject that Israeli pressure was a serious factor in his decision-making against Tehran. 

In January, Trump said that he has been “the best president of the United States in the history of this country toward Israel” in an interview with the NYT. 

“The United States committed troops to this conflict because the prime minister of Israel, not Israel’s nation, but the guy who runs it, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi, demanded it,” said Tucker Carlson, a political commentator and a leading MAGA voice, in his latest show. 

During the show, Carlson repeatedly blamed the Netanyahu government for the US war on Iran, rejecting the claims that Iran would get nuclear weapons soon or target American cities. 

UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi recently posted on X that his organisation found “no evidence of Iran building a nuclear bomb” while Tehran’s enrichment caused “serious concern” to him. There is also no evidence that Iran has military capability and political intention to target US cities. 

“Actually, they were not on the verge of getting nukes. Bibi himself said. You can pull up the video, ‘I’ve been dreaming about this for forty years. We’ve finally done it’,” Carlson said, referring to Netanyahu’s statement that the Israeli leader has long lobbied for an American attack on Iran. 

Now Trump’s MAGA is on fire, questioning how the president’s latest actions align with his own national security doctrine, which promised a Trump Corollary focused on avoiding costly wars in distant regions beyond the Western Hemisphere. 

Trump’s war on Iran “risks being the worst US foreign policy decision in generations and unless it is quickly ended it will become impossible to contain and make the Iraq invasion look like a mere prelude,” Abdi says.

“The war on Iran is bad for everyone involved and will not bring Iranians freedom nor will it bring the region security.”

Are the US and Israeli endgames the same? 

To understand whose battle the Iranian war is, analysts also look at the endgame for both Israelis and Americans and what kind of closure they are seeking for the current conflict. 

John Sawers, a former MI6 chief, told CNN that both Israelis and Americans do not appear to have the same endgame scenario for the Iran war. 

Washington has long believed that if Iran becomes a failed state, it could harm regional stability, harbour armed groups capable of causing chaos in the Gulf and threatening the national security of neighbouring states. 

Unlike the US, Israelis might want to see a chaotic Iran, which has been fragmented into different ethnic sectors that can not pose a significant threat against the Zionist state anymore, according to the former MI6 chief.  

But in terms of the US endgame, some influential figures in the current Trump administration seem to follow the Israeli agenda against Iran. 

“That’s not our job, to pick the next Iranian government… It’s not my job, it’s not President Trump’s job,” said hawkish Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, the US president’s reliable ally and a pro-Israeli figure, in a recent interview, suggesting that a chaotic Iran is not a problem for the Trump administration. 

“It’s like we’re going to break all the china and you guys decide how to put it back together. It seems like that is the strategy,” said Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, referring to the Trump administration’s war rhetoric, which has shown no strategic clarity, suggesting that the US does not have a meaningful endgame for the Iran war. 

Trump’s own words also suggest chaos for Iran. 

In a recent briefing during his meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Metz, he revealed that his administration considered a Venezuela-type scenario in which Khamenei would be replaced by a lenient leader, such as Delcy Rodriguez, the current interim president in Caracas.  

When asked about who could be Iran’s Rodriguez, “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” the US president replied, referring to America’s so-called potential picks for Tehran’s next leadership. 

“Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody,” he continued in his classic style, indicating that the US does not seek any kind of Venezuela scenario to install a friendly, stable government in Tehran. 

Witkoff-Kushner pair: Were they deceitful? 

The political makeup of Trump’s negotiation team also raised doubts about the nature of the talks Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner conducted with Iran, as both men were widely seen as having close ties with the Israeli government. 

A recent Axios report suggests that the Witkoff-Kushner duo informed both Netanyahu and Mossad head David Barnea “almost every day” on the stages of their negotiations with the Iranians. 

Some say that the duo used their talks with Tehran as a cover for Israel’s upcoming war.  

Witkoff, a Jewish American real estate developer, strongly supports Israel, and Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, is an Orthodox Jewish businessman with a Zionist stance. Both pro-Israeli negotiators faced the Iranians.

Despite the perceived pro-Israel leanings of the Witkoff–Kushner team, the negotiations appeared to be making unexpected progress. 

Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the talks, suggested that a breakthrough might be within reach, noting that Iran had accepted the principle of “zero stockpiling” of enriched uranium during the discussions.

The Omani foreign minister rushed to Washington to keep the talks alive in a “last ditch” effort to secure a deal, but he could not find either Trump or Rubio, because both men already flown to Mar-a Lago, the president’s private luxurious estate in Florida, to launch America’s war on Iran. 

Less than 24 hours after the announcement of the so-called breakthrough, US-Israel joint strikes hit Iran, leading many to believe that the American Jewish duo was duplicitous in their talks with Iranian counterparts.

While the Omani foreign minister said a deal was close, Witkoff, a business partner of Trump, claimed it was not during a Fox interview. “It was very, very clear that it was going to be impossible,” he said. 

The Witkoff-Kushner talks were “a ruse,” said Brett Bruen, a former State Department official who served on the National Security Council during Barack Obama’s presidency.