Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wants Donald Trump to escalate the campaign against Iran and start bombing the country’s power plants and oil infrastructure.
“It’s going to be painful in the short term; it’s the right thing to do in the long term,” he said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington on Monday afternoon.
“This will get rid of the regime, and if you get rid of the regime, you get rid of the nuclear program, and then you get rid of the ballistic missile program. It’s a painful solution, but I think it’s the only solution.”
As Lapid was on stage, his rival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, landed at Joint Base Andrews a few kilometres away for a high-stakes visit that will include Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral and a White House meeting with Trump.
Netanyahu, too, may implore the president to go further against Iran. After all, he was key to the war’s initiation.
As reported by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in their book Regime Change, the Israeli leader made a “hard sell” to Trump about the possibility of toppling the regime in Tehran weeks before the two countries launched their joint military operation at the end of February.
At the time, Trump told Americans it would take four to six weeks. The war turns five months old on Tuesday, just as he and Netanyahu meet again.
Their hand-in-glove relationship is now being tested by the intractable state of affairs in Iran. Military conquests by the US – which Trump boasts about every day – have not translated into a strategic victory.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are effectively controlling the Strait of Hormuz by firing occasionally at ships that try to get through.
It appears that the latest flare-up in fighting is over, for now at least. Trump said on Monday that “friendly” talks were taking place, and he wanted to give those a chance. The US has not launched strikes since Thursday. Reportedly, military commander Brad Cooper advised that the strikes had reached the limit of their effectiveness.
But the strategic mess remains. Iran expert Danny Citrinowicz, a researcher at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, says escalating the bombing – the option likely sought by Netanyahu – is “an outcome whose consequences are impossible to predict and that offers no guarantee Iran would capitulate”.
The other option is to engage with Iran’s demands about its role in the Strait of Hormuz. “Neither option is attractive, and the administration will ultimately have to decide which carries the lower strategic cost,” Citrinowicz said on X.
Other factors now frustrate the Trump-Netanyahu bromance, including Trump’s civilian nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia (which he says is dependent on Riyadh establishing relations with Israel), and the situation in Lebanon.
As leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, Lapid’s remarks on Monday underline that it is not just Netanyahu urging Trump to strike harder. Such is the existential threat posed to Israel by Iran and its proxies that there is broad political consensus about the need to destroy the regime.
I understand why it’s becoming more and more painful as the midterms approach … A guy who sits with a little drone 5000 kilometres from here is conducting the oil prices in Wisconsin.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid
But Americans are losing patience – and they weren’t that thrilled at the start. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this weekend found only a third of voters supported the war, a record low. And a Politico survey earlier this month found waning enthusiasm even among Trump’s MAGA base.
Netanyahu will find it harder to convince Trump this time. The US president was sold on a quick mission; now he finds himself in a quagmire. Trump likes to say that he doesn’t care about the impact on the midterm elections – but plenty of people around him do.
As Lapid observed on Monday: “I understand why it’s becoming more and more painful as the midterms approach … A guy who sits with a little drone 5000 kilometres from here is conducting the oil prices in Wisconsin.”
Asked on Air Force One whether he and Netanyahu were on the same page regarding Iran, Trump said they were pretty close, but “we have a little difference”. In Trump-speak, that means there’s a veritable chasm between them.
Netanyahu’s best bet may be to show that a deal with the Iranian regime is impossible. Trump appeared to come to this conclusion earlier – he went from calling Iran’s leaders “smart” and “rational” to labelling them “liars” and “scum”.
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
