Is The Economist Cover Still Valid: Advantage Iran
Saeed Naqvi
I would never have expected the liberal right wing, Israel friendly news
magazine, The Economist, to have on its cover a headline in large fonts –
Advantage Iran. There is now a willingness in the ruling class circles to
accept Iran’s upper hand in a conflict with Israel (and the US). This totally
contradicts Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (or Bibi, as he is
called) persistent sales pitch with Trump that joint Israel-US bombing of Iran
will cause the Iranian regime to collapse.
Reports have now surfaced in the Israeli Press of Vice President, J. D. Vance having taken Netanyahu to task for having sold a line which had zero chance of proving right. That Vance is now smelling of roses signals a crack in Trump’s White House team. The point of contention was the US fighting Israel’s war with Iran.
This war within the Washington establishment adds to mounting anxieties on account of the widening cracks in Trump’s MAGA base. Israel’s war with Iran and Trump’s willingness to take a leadership role is creating turbulence in MAGA.
A fact, among many, which make Trump so willing a champion for an Israeli war is his Jewish son-in-law Jarred Kushner being “chummy” with Bibi. Kushner is virtually “Bibi’s” man in the White House.
Bibi has the kind of influence on the extraordinarily powerful Israel lobby in the US that no Israeli leader has ever had. And little wonder too. He has degrees from Harvard and MIT. Add to this network his experience as Israel’s ambassador to the UN for four years, keeping him amidst the world’s second largest Jewish population after Tel Aviv.
Trump disguises it by his bluster but he is torn between the Israeli lobby and the MAGA base which sees a betrayal of the America First project bound around Trump as its leader.
A President with a character as doubtful as Trump’s may not turn out to be as reliable as his MAGA followers expect him to be. The real danger lies elsewhere. A President in his second term can be willful and self-serving because he sees no occupation of the White House after 2028.
A MAGA ideologue Trump respects, Steve Bannon, told The Economist editor-in-chief, Zany Minton Beddoes in a podcast that “Trump will be President beyond 2028” because “the American people want that to happen.” How would that be possible when the 22nd Amendment to US Constitution restricts a President’s terms to two.
Bannon said “the American people will find ways around the Constitution.” Bannon’s hyperbole was stunning. “Trump is like Moses leading his people out of Egypt.”
This excessive praise of Trump, let it be added in parenthesis, predated the war with Iran. Trump’s stock is much lower among MAGA now primarily because “American blood is being shed for Israel’s war.”
Vice President J.D. Vance giving a dressing down to Netanyahu for having misled the President on the war, that once the top Iran leadership was decapitated the Iranian would rise to a man. Israeli intelligence had predicted such an almighty popular uprising not just against the Ayatullahs but in favour of Trump. What happened was exactly the opposite. Iranians rallied around the regime most demonstrably.
Even before this division in the White House inner circle about Israel’s influence on Trump was the rupture in the MAGA base. It became headline news with the murder of a prominent activist and Trump’s friend Charlie Kirk during a talk on Turning Point America at Utah Valley college. MAGA is supposed to be America’s “Turning Point”.
The murder acquired sinister undertones because it took place in the period when Kirk had become vocal against the US-Israeli build up for a war in Iran. At the heart of the opposition to the war the same fear – its Israel’s war.
The needle of suspicion pointed at Israel but the police picked up a 22 year Tyler Robinson who was heard by witnesses expressing anger at Kirk spreading too much hate.
Fractures appeared in the US Intelligence community including at the highest levels. Joe Kent, Director of National Counter Terrorism Centre was keen to explore some leads which pointed to a “foreign hand” in Kirk’s murder. He was blocked by authorities not to pursue his line of inquiry. Kent resigned.
Kent’s resignation opened up a serious problem in the US Intelligence community. Kent has acquired star ratings for his candid, full disclosure interviews with such super stars as Tucker Carlson. A distillate of what he says points to an American intelligence community which may have begun to be dangerously reliant on Israeli intelligence.
This fracture in the intelligence community is no trifling matter. Suddenly the social media with ideologically motivated journalists like Tucker Carlson have mushroomed to flaunt stories of deep Israeli penetration of the US establishment.
That Trump had turned his back on Europe is well known. Rather than have the albatross of Western decline around US’s neck, MAGA strategized differently: it parted company with Europe to find itself in solo splendour as the world’s richest and militarily the most powerful country. The sole super power moment had passed most decisively when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. Western decline become the chant which grew in decibel level.
Division in Trump’s close circle, in the MAGA base, within the Intelligence community, harsh exchanges with NATO and individual European nation are all signs of irritation which has one source – the Iran war. What should alarm Bibi is this – all plaintiffs are opposed to US fighting “Israel’s war.”
If this grows, as it will because of high costs on account of the closure of the straits of Hormuz and possibility of returning body bags, should US ground troops be deployed, Trump’s popularity will fall even as the mid-term elections approach in November.
The burden of all this will strain US-Israel relations as never before. The very thought of US distancing itself from the West Asian theatre will pose for Israel its first real existential crisis.
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