The Israeli military operation against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities and ballistic missile program, and the US reaction, have set up a test for US President Donald Trump and his campaign promise to keep the United States out of foreign conflicts.
As Trump prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army by hosting a massive military parade on June 14 in Washington, an event that falls on Trump’s 79th birthday and also follows his decision to send US military forces to California to control immigration unrest, questions have been raised about the extent of US involvement in the attack on Iran.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was the first administration official to react to the attack, issuing a statement late on June 12 saying that the United States was “not involved.”
But foreign policy experts on June 13 said they were told that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke multiple times hours before the attack.
“We knew everything,” Trump said of the Israeli attack plans, according to Reuters. “I tried to save Iran from humiliation and death. I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out.”
Trump called a meeting of his National Security Council on June 13 to discuss Israel’s operations. No details were provided on specific aspects of the meeting; however, Trump warned on Truth Social that he has knowledge of Israel’s plans and there is “a lot more to come.”
At the same time, he appeared to want to frame the situation as a second chance for Iran to reach an agreement on curbing its nuclear program.
“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
The comments indicate that Trump is still holding onto the hope that a negotiated settlement could be reached. The White House said a day before the strikes that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff would head to Oman to meet Iranian officials on June 15 for talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.
While the Iranians said they would not participate, Trump said the talks were still on the agenda, though he was not sure if they would take place.
In the aftermath of the Israeli strikes, questions arose about the next steps for the United States and the danger that it could be drawn into another war in the region, given the outsized presence of the US military in the Persian Gulf.
Some military resources have already begun to shift their posture as the United States looks to guard against possible retaliatory attacks by Tehran, according to two US officials who spoke anonymously to the Associated Press.
Trump highlighted, actually bragged, that Israel used fighter jets and other weaponry provided by the United States, warning Iran’s leaders that Israel has “the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World” and further attacks “would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.”
John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national-security adviser in Trump’s first administration, said the United States should not only be helping Israel carry out attacks by providing intelligence, rallying Gulf allies, and getting US forces to the region, it should also prepare for phase two — potential regime change.
“The Iranian nuclear program is not an Israeli problem — it’s an American problem. It’s a problem of global nuclear proliferation, and we let it go on for far too long,” he said.
He called the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program “a waste of oxygen,” saying in an interview with CNN on June 13 that there “was never a chance that Iran was going to agree to a deal that we would find acceptable.”
Netanyahu “has cut through the fog and done, frankly, what should have been done 20 years ago,” said Bolton, a well-known foreign policy hawk, who also previously served as US ambassador to the United Nations.
Other experts on the Middle East cautioned that the possibility that the United States could be drawn into another war in the region is real.
Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), said if Iran kills any Americans, the United States would retaliate. But he added that he didn’t believe that Tehran would be “crazy enough to do that.”
Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Abrams also said that while he doesn’t view Trump as an isolationist as many in his Make American Great Again (MAGA) coalition are, he believes the president operates on the premise that the United States doesn’t want to intervene anywhere, but “if you make trouble, we are going to kill you.”
Abrams and other foreign policy experts said Israel would need a so-called bunker-breaking bomb to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility, which is deep underground. He said he didn’t believe that the United States was prepared to provide Israel with that weapon, nor use it.
Daniel Byman, a policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said it’s not clear that Israel’s attack truly devastated Iran’s nuclear program for the long term, and despite Trump’s aversion to war, he could be swayed to finish the job.
“Although the Trump administration might not want to attack Iran, it might feel that doing so is better than allowing Iran to rebuild its nuclear program,” said Byman in an online commentary. “Such a US response is especially likely if Iran retaliates against US as well as Israeli targets.”
Byman said the United States “could easily get sucked into this conflict.”
Vali Nasr, author of the book Iran’s Grand Strategy and a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said the deaths of dozens of civilian Iranians mean the two sides have already crossed a line in the conflict.
“I don’t see it stopping because I don’t see Iran being able right now to go to the table and…accept surrender,” Nasr said on US broadcaster PBS. “It feels compelled that it has to retaliate, and that is going to invite additional retaliation.”
Nasr added that Trump has stressed he wants diplomacy but is now likely “to earn himself a war that he said he did not want and leave the region, I think, more unstable than when he arrived in office.”
(RFE/RL)
