(Dobbs) Netanyahu Means What He Says. But So Far, So Does Iran.

Trump: “I’m going to stop wars.” He has come up with a lot of zeroes.

It’s as true today as it was on Friday when I wrote about the first day of war between Israel and Iran: Israel has the upper hand, but, “No one can say where this new war…. is going. Not the Israelis, not the Iranians, certainly not the Trump administration in Washington. It’s too early. No one can say whether, in the long term, it will make for a more peaceful world, or a more perilous one.”

It’s enigmatic and explosive enough that last night President Trump left the G7 summit of world leaders in Canada a day sooner than he’d planned. What he told reporters, seemingly referring to Iran, was, “They want to make a deal, and as soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something. But I have to leave here.” Does he actually have something in the works? Does he hope to have something in the works? Does he have nothing in the works and this is just another demonstration of his typical tactic of keeping people off-guard about his next move, possibly while he figures out for himself what that will be?

None of that is clear. But two things do seem clear so far.

One is that when Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu says he will pull out all the stops to destroy the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, he means it. Every word he utters amounts to this: “We will keep hitting them til we’ve finished them off.” Of course he consistently has said the same about eliminating Hamas but, while it has suffered serious blows, it has not disappeared.

With Iran, a few barriers might stand in his way. Iran has the knowhow and, notwithstanding some physical damage the past few days, facilities to keep developing a bomb. Israel killing senior Iranian military officials and as many as fourteen of its nuclear scientists doesn’t change that. Israel flattening many of Iran’s air defense systems doesn’t change that. What’s more, the physical core of Iran’s program evidently is deep in a mountain in the north of the nation (about a hundred miles south of Tehran), beyond the capacity of Israeli weapons to penetrate it. Netanyahu declared yesterday that his warplanes have set the program back a “very, very long time” and that might be true, but if they haven’t decimated it, then the threat is still alive. It’s too soon to predict but it’s plausible that with Israel taking nuclear negotiations off the table, Iran will double down and pull out all its own stops to build nuclear weapons. In other words, although Israel’s strategy very well might work, it also could backfire.

Having reported from Iran before, during, and after the revolution that shaped its radical religious government, I’ve always feared that if the Islamic Republic felt like the West had forced its back up against a wall, there were leaders there who would be willing to become martyrs, like suicide bombers with their nation strapped to their chests. The question right now is, are they already close to being there?

The other thing that seems clear is that although Israel’s intelligence and its military have outmaneuvered and outgunned Iran’s, Iran is not buckling under, at least not without a fierce fight. This could change tomorrow, of course, but any theory that Iran would make concessions to avoid a full-scale Israeli blitz— maybe executed with American support— right now is unfounded. Unlike exchanges in the past, which have been mediated and terminated within days, even hours, this one has the hallmarks of a more painful duration. Terrorists from the West Bank, rockets from Gaza, nothing in fifty years has put the Israeli people on edge like the massive waves of missiles and drones from Iran. Tel Aviv always has been a cosmopolitan city. Now it is a city in the grip of fear, a city with casualties from its own war.

Nor can Netanyahu necessarily destroy Iran itself as a threat. Until now at least, the nuclear threat has been theoretical. But the terrorism threat has been very real and very harmful. Even with Iranian clients like Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis weakened, they haven’t gone away, they’ve only gone to ground. If I learned nothing else from covering the Middle East, I learned that they have a different perspective about time. Unlike us, they’re not always looking for a “quick fix.” Their millennial histories give them patience. Even the 9/11 terrorists, under the direction of Osama bin Laden, spent two years or more planning their attacks on that dreadful day.

There has been all kinds of speculation about what Israel might do in the next stage of this war. It might try to impose regime change. However, if Iran’s population is united by being under attack— the expression is, “An attack on one of us is an attack on us all”— there’s only a 50/50 chance that a new regime would be any less radical than this one and, what’s more, that average Iranians would welcome Israel as their liberators. It might assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, although reports over the weekend said that Israel ran the idea past President Trump but, clinging to the hope that the war will be short and that negotiations to stop Iran’s nuclear program can resume, he said no.

Of course if Iran lashes out not just at Israel but at American interests because we’ve been helping the Jewish state in the background, then all bets are off. Iran's foreign minister insisted Sunday that Israel's attacks were not possible “without the agreement and support of the United States.”

President Trump’s in a very dangerous place. He has made no secret of his dream that he will be seen as a peace-maker, not a war-maker. “I’m not going to start wars,” Trump promised in his victory speech last November, “I’m going to stop wars.” So far, he has come up with zeroes. Remember what he said about Ukraine? “If I'm president I will have that war settled in 24 hours?” Failed. Remember how he intended to end the war in Gaza “as quickly as possible?” Failed. Remember three weeks ago when the president said there could be “something good in the next two days” from the nuclear talks he orchestrated between the U.S. and Iran? Failed. Remember the “birth of a modern Middle East” that he pledged last month during his trip to Saudi Arabia? This is a very bad start.

Now the picture looks different. Trump has yet to reap the benefits of all his largesse to Israel, both in his first term and now. He told Netanyahu he didn’t want Israel to strike Iran, but it struck anyway. He often touts his friendship with Israel’s prime minister and, for that matter, with Russia’s president who reportedly has sway with Iran. But it is not getting anyone any closer to peace. Asked about a U.S. role in this war, he told ABC News on Sunday, “It’s possible we could get involved.”

Behind the scenes, there will be spinoffs from this new war. One of them is, Israel’s long-hostile neighbors who only recently have moved toward diplomatic relationships— the mainly Sunni oil-rich Gulf states— will be cheering it on. They have never trusted the Islamic Republic. They’ve always feared a nuclear Iran, they’ve fought off terrorists supported by Iran, and they’ve backed proxy armies in the region in direct conflict with Iran’s proxies. In recent months the Saudis and the Iranians made nice with each other, but handshakes in that flammable part of the world sometimes last no longer than a cube of ice.

And forgotten in all this? Ukraine’s war with Russia. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023, Ukraine fell off the radar as governments and news organizations alike shifted their focus to the Middle East. That seems to be happening again. And woe to the hostages still in Gaza in the hands of Hamas. A spokesperson for Israel’s military sent them a message yesterday saying, “If you are hearing me, we did not forget you.”

But just how hard can Israel now focus on them, while it turns its eyes toward Iran? No one can say. Does President Trump actually have a trick up his sleeve that will end this bitter war? Once again, no one can say.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net