The relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is, by their own admission, going well. They have been fighting hand in hand since the start of the war they began on February 28 against Iran, and maintain a close, “extraordinary” relationship, according to the American president. The Israeli Prime Minister has made no less than six trips to Washington since the billionaire returned to power in early 2025, including one just days before the start of the conflict.
However, as strikes on Iran continue and the fighting has been going on for three weeks now, the objectives of the two men seem to be diverging, especially regarding the choice of targets. Israeli strikes on the Iranian gas site in South Pars on Wednesday, March 18, did not sit well with Donald Trump, and differences are also emerging about the timing of when each can claim victory.
Washington and Tel Aviv are emphasizing a shared goal: to permanently degrade Iran’s military capabilities, curb its nuclear program, and weaken the mullahs’ regime as much as possible. The two historic allies have clearly divided tasks: Israel focuses on the Iranian leadership, having killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war and many other senior officials since, while the United States targets military installations.
“The operations carried out clearly show that the Israeli government has focused on neutralizing Iranian leaders,” while the goals of the American president “are to destroy Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles, its ballistic missile production capability, as well as its navy and its ability to plant mines,” said Tulsi Gabbard, head of American intelligence services, in a hearing before a parliamentary committee on Thursday.
But the conflict escalated after Israel attacked the Iranian part of the South Pars offshore gas field on Wednesday, the world’s largest known gas reserve. Donald Trump expressed his disagreement on Thursday about a strike that the spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry called a “dangerous and irresponsible step.” “Targeting energy infrastructure poses a threat to global energy security,” he regretted in a message posted on X. Iran retaliated by launching a broad counterattack against the energy resources of neighboring countries considered allies of the United States by the Islamic Republic, leading to turmoil in financial markets and now raising the specter of a gas war in the region.
Asked about the repercussions of this attack, the American president did not hide his displeasure with his Israeli ally. “I told him not to do it, and he won’t do it anymore,” he said at the White House, adding, “We act independently, but we get along very well. It’s coordinated. But sometimes, he does something, and if I don’t like it, then we don’t do it anymore.”
However, the Wall Street Journal claims that Donald Trump had been informed of this strike and had approved it. Nevertheless, he claimed the opposite on his Truth Social network, emphasizing that the United States knew “nothing” about the attack. Coming to Qatar’s defense, the American president also stated, “Israel will no longer carry out any attacks on the South Pars gas field, of vital importance, unless Iran makes the reckless decision to attack an innocent target, namely Qatar.”
Donald Trump has close relations with the Arab Gulf monarchies, which serve as bases for American troops and are therefore targeted by Iran. “When everything goes well, everyone is happy (…) If things start to really go wrong – and we all know that Trump is not sentimental – then the accusations will fly,” anticipates Yossi Mekelberg from the Chatham House think tank in London, interviewed by AFP.
“The biggest miscalculation of the American administration is certainly to be drawn into this war,” wrote Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, in The Economist, considering that “this is not the United States’ war, and there is no plausible scenario in which Israel and the United States would both get what they expect.” Thursday night, Benjamin Netanyahu denied having involved his historical ally in the conflict, telling journalists, “Does anyone really think that we can tell President Trump what to do?”
The differences between the two countries “are likely to increase over time,” anticipates Dan Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, interviewed by CNN. Thus, if Donald Trump had, at the beginning of the war, “expressed hope that the Iranian regime would be quickly overthrown, he now emphasizes this point less.” However, the elimination of the mullahs remains Israel’s top priority, as the regime poses a direct threat to the Jewish state. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to bring it down, just like the Lebanese Hezbollah.
But this Israeli uncompromising stance risks the United States “facing the consequences of a chaotic scenario after the regime’s fall, potentially a civil war in Iran, instability that could spread and affect neighboring countries, as well as migration flows that could destabilize Europe and Gulf allies,” predicts Dan Shapiro. Aiming at all costs for a transition to a new regime in Iran also means prolonging the war “for several more weeks, or even longer,” which will be “very costly to the United States, both in terms of human lives and financial resources,” stresses the former diplomat.
The Pentagon is demanding an additional $200 billion from Congress, as revealed by the Washington Post on Thursday. This is a colossal amount since it represents “one-fifth of the annual defense budget, and more than the $188 billion in military aid to Ukraine unblocked by the Biden administration over three years,” as pointed out by Les Echos. In the absence of clear explanations on the White House’s military objectives, some lawmakers, mainly Democrats, could try to block this funding request. And some Republicans may be tempted to support this initiative.
Moreover, several senior American officials are skeptical about the very purpose of this war. Like Joe Kent, who was appointed by Donald Trump to lead the National Counterterrorism Center and abruptly announced his resignation on Tuesday, criticizing an unjustified intervention. “Iran posed no imminent threat,” he wrote in his letter published on X.
This unexpected resignation highlights the divisions within the Republican sphere and the inner circle of the American president. Columnist Tucker Carlson, a longtime supporter of Donald Trump, for example, criticizes in a very harsh manner the war against Iran and welcomed the resignation of the American anti-terrorism senior official, as reported by the New York Times.
On the American public opinion side, the conflict appears unpopular, even among a portion of Donald Trump’s electoral base. According to a recent poll conducted by Reuters, 59% of Americans disapprove of this conflict, and 55% of those surveyed say they oppose the deployment of any ground troops, regardless of the scale of the operations. The conflict has led to an increase in gasoline prices for consumers and turbulence in the markets just a few months before the midterm elections in November.
According to Brian Katulis from the Middle East Institute in Washington, interviewed by AFP, “it is not inconceivable that Donald Trump may feel that the cost of this war is becoming too high and hinders his domestic policy.” But it is still necessary for him to “draw an honorable way out.”
