Why Netanyahu Engineered a Trump Strategic Defeat against Iran

Who benefits from a US strategic defeat in Iran? There is only one winner: Israel.

Does Netanyahu seek a strategic defeat of the US in Iran?

Netanyahu knows that Israel cannot survive without the US and has done everything in his (as have other Israeli politicians) to ensure that the US is effectively a subsidiary of Israel in international affairs and the UN. But that sentiment has been under threat caused by the very well-publicised genocide in Gaza (I’m not discussing the use of that word, I’m calling it what it is). 

Netanyahu needs to cement American subservience to Israeli political needs, and with Iran he has found the way to do exactly that; handcuff the US to Israel.

In addition, Arab states, and the world for that matter, recognise the transactional, no real allies, all-about-the-money nature of Trump. They bribe him, they flatter him, and they use that influence to remind his minions that they can buy his opinions and policies. They know that when the time comes, they will determine Trump’s Israel policy, not the other way around.

Yes, last week Saudi Arabia and the US announced, and signed, a nuclear technology transfer agreement. Then within a day, Trump (at the urging of Netanyahu) declared that one of the conditions for fulfilment of that agreement would be Saudi Arabia joining the ‘Abrahan Accords’, Trump’s pseudo-peace plan for the Middle East. Saudi Arabia said, “That wasn’t part of the deal”. So nothing is solved, yet.

Given enough time and cunning, Saudi Arabia and other Arab/Muslim countries will find ways to weaken the Israeli hold on the American system, and with Trump they have just the tool to accomplish that, if Israel gives them the time to accomplish their goals. 

And here we come to the Israeli/American War with Iran.

Parity will never be Israel’s friend, and Israel has pursued policies to ensure that no Arab state or combination of Arab states will, in a coordinated way, gain a level of military parity last seen at the start of the Yom Kippur/October War in 1973. Thus, Israel developed their nuclear weapons and has non-subtly indicated their ‘red lines’ for the use of those weapons. Israel has also ensured that no ‘frontline’ Arab state could develop a nuclear program that could lead to a bomb.

But what if an Arab and/or Muslim ‘frontline’ state were to develop a nuclear program to the point of nuclear weapons ambiguity? A simple red line might not be adequate. And as Israel continues to push the residual Palestinians into smaller and smaller ghettos, further from anything that might be considered core-Israel, another deterrence will be required.

Netanyahu knew from the beginning that Trump could not win the war against Iran. The most he (Trump or Netanyahu) could hope for was the setting back of the Iranian nuclear programme by a few more years, and the continued isolation of Iran for the coming decade.

But I suspect that Netanyahu also knew that the US would suffer a strategic defeat against Iran, and that the entire balance of power in the Middle East would be under threat.

And here is how Israel could be the single biggest winner. Get the US thrown out of the GCC countries, and Washington will have no option but to find new places to base their forward assets in the Middle East: Israel.

Currently, there are in the hundreds to low thousands of US troops in Israel. That is not enough to create the tripwire required. Israel needs many thousands of US troops, stationed permanently in Israel, as the ultimate guarantors of Israeli safety from anyone’s bomb. Thousands of US troops stationed in Israel because there are no other countries in the Middle East who will host them will allow Israel to continue its genocide, knowing that the US will not abandon Israel, no matter how egregious the violations of human rights or war crimes committed by the IDF.

By the time this is done, there will be huge US military installations in Israel, probably in the Negev but also up north in southern Golan. Both places that will allow bases to be built, and create the biggest repository of American human shields to protect Israel.

Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania host US forces, in small numbers, specifically to act as tripwires. Netanyahu and those around him see exactly how that works, and the deterrence it places on Russia. How nice to have exactly that same deterrence against any Arab/Muslim state that wished Israel harm.

Stupid Trump Will Get the US Thrown Out of the Gulf, Soon

The man really is very stupid. He seems to believe that only he has agency and that, by telling lies, everyone will believe him each time until he exposes the lie and starts the process all over. He believes that he can use the Amerikan legal system (or principles at least) against his domestic enemies AND anyone and any group or country in the world, forever and without any countermoves of effect. Deny (lie that all is fixed), delay (lie again), and litigate (bomb them), restart the process, and fundamentally, outlast them.

He does not realise that he is being played by Iran. They have decided they are going to destroy him, and that is exactly what their strategy is all about right now. 

They are playing him at his own game, letting him make declarations, only desultorily reminding the world that they are Trump’s declarations, not theirs. And each time he backs down to restart the clock (a variation on his legal strategy in US cases – wait, then file a new lawsuit), the world knows what he is doing and looks to Tehran for more, dare I say it, balanced information.

His history has included continuing the cycle until the opponent is bankrupt, or until he files for bankruptcy (much rarer) and blackmails the banks into keeping him personally solvent for the next round.

Today he is trying the same tactics on the international stage, and he thinks he’s getting away with it. “The Strait is open, and traffic is flowing”, while the world can look at the maps and see the lie in front of their faces.

On no planet does this look like “open and traffic is flowing”.

Strait of Hormuz traffic as at 08:00 CET, 16 July 2026

And to all casual observation, and certainly to his sycophants who cannot survive even after being told the truth, he is succeeding. 

Apologies for inserting a sports analogy, but it is World Cup season: We are still early in this game. Halftime is still months away, and the second half is going to be brutal. Leading into the midterms, Trump thinks he’s winning, or at least he’s doing everything he can to be able to claim a win.

Iran is not playing. Or maybe more accurately, Iran is playing him, not his game.

My expectation is that Iran will string Trump along just as he thinks he is stringing Iran along.

It bears repeating: Iran has been preparing for a war with the US, the ‘West’, and the Gulf States for over 45 years. They’ve implemented a command-and-control system designed to survive decapitation, as we have seen. They know “the Great Satan” will be back, and they know the war will hurt. They survived almost ten years of war with Iraq, and they fully expect the war with Trump to be protracted. 

They know they can ‘outlast’ Trump, and they will.

To Iran, the alternative is another war in six months or a year, and continued sanctions and attempted strangulation of their economy and intentional destabilisation of their regime. Peace on Trump’s terms, or even peace resulting from Trump’s boredom, will not deliver any improvement in the longer-term prospects for Iran or the regime.

Trump has been preparing for a war with Iran for nine months, at most, and has surrounded himself with sycophants who have not been telling him the truth about Iranian capabilities and will to fight. Before the war, Trump was told that there was a risk that Iran would close the Strait, but he shrugged that off and, and his chief military advisor did not adequately assert the level of risk (a certainty).

Venezuela was a fantastic success (watch this space, however), and there was no reason that Iran would not be an even bigger success. And if it wasn’t a success, at least it will have provided a nationalism-inspiring distraction from the Epstein Files and other domestic frustrations. Any blowback from war with Iran would be manageable, and possibly even advantageous in keeping his minions in order. After all, for “47 years” Iran has been at war with Amerika, so anything that goes wrong is, of course, Obama's or Biden’s fault.

He even used the word “excursion” in describing the war. 

Iran does not see this as an Amerikan "excursion"; it sees this as Iran’s opportunity to push the US out of the Gulf, completely. And they will fight this war to accomplish exactly that.

If the US continues to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran, or attacks power stations or desalination plants, Iran will respond against the Gulf States. Until now, the restraint has been incredible. When we read that Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, or even Saudi Arabia have been attacked, in almost every case, the attacks are aimed at US bases in those countries, or are responses to attacks on their (Iranian) oil infrastructure.

But Iran will reach a breaking point, and they will warn their Gulf neighbours that any attacks that use their neighbour's airspace or facilities based in the Gulf countries will be considered an attack by those Gulf countries. At that time, the Gulf countries will need to make a choice: come under attack themselves (not attacks on Amerikan bases) or stop the Amerikans from using them as launch points, whether ground, sea or airspace.

When Iran starts attacking Gulf desalination plants, that will signal the endgame for Amerikan hegemony. Yes, the Gulf states will be in open warfare against Iran, but that will be little different from the current status of letting someone else be in open warfare with Iran on their behalf.

In summary, Trump cannot win this war, and will be humiliated, and the US will be forced into a humiliating retreat, no matter how he spins this.