Trump Caught in Israel’s Trap, Bad Choice and Worse Choice Ahead
USA, June 15, 2025 – It is noteworthy that the mainstream press and senior Democrats have so far remained silent about the exchange of blows between Israel and Iran. Under Biden, in a similar situation (although there was no such escalation then), they quickly came up with a formula that called for restraint, but left it up to Israel to do the right thing. Trump will not be given such a “green light”. It is noteworthy that many media outlets (including those openly hostile to Trump) admit that Trump did not want an exchange of blows between Israel and Iran and, in a sense, he fell into the trap.
Politico quotes an unnamed Pentagon official as saying:
“A lot of the MAGA people who were really invested in getting Trump and Vance elected would be incredibly disappointed if this turned into a bigger, more divisive war.” Right-wing MAGA activists and far-left Democratic politicians are much more vocal. Tucker Carlson, one of the main “singers” of the MAGA movement, published a “Morning Note” on his TCN channel, accusing Trump of complicity in Israeli aggression, pointing to Israel’s inability to confront Iran on its own, which could drag the US into another major war in the Middle East. In this regard, Carlson essentially called for Israel to be left alone and let it fight the war it is waging here on its own. This “news” immediately made waves in the media.
“What happens next will define the Trump presidency,” Carlson concluded.
And left-wing Democrats agree with him on this. Congresswoman (from Pennsylvania) Summer Lee wrote on her microblog:
“Israeli strikes on Iran could lead to further regional violence. Innocent civilians will be caught in the crossfire. We cannot allow a war criminal to drag American troops and resources into another endless war. Diplomacy is the only way forward.”
The war criminal is, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu, writes analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky. Other leftists have quickly joined this view: Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and others. They are all unpleasant people, but their opinion now coincides with that of Tucker Carlson and much of the MAGA movement, which sympathizes with Israel but definitely does not want another war across the ocean. And in the middle of all this is Donald Trump, whom Netanyahu shamelessly tripped up by starting the war two days before Steven Whitkoff arrived in Oman for talks with the Iranian side. Moreover, Israel deliberately eliminated virtually all members of the negotiating team on the Iranian side.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insists that the United States had “no involvement” in the attack on Iran, and sources in many administration publications seem to be quite sincere in claiming that the Pentagon and even the CIA “wanted to know as few details as possible” about the planned attack, especially since Israel again warned Washington of its actions several hours in advance. But that does not change anything. After the exchange of blows between Israel and Iran, Trump remains in the most vulnerable centrist position – where the foreign policy establishment and pro-Israel hawks await him. “Deals” are not working, the hawks and the deep state are not defeated, and Trump is expected to make decisions that he does not want to make. Keeping America out of war under these conditions will be extremely difficult – Dmitry Drobnitsky added.
The Israeli attack on Iran, which began on Friday, June 13, completes almost a quarter of a century of military and political developments in West Asia. There are no lessons to be learned from this period: events were too different, and the results very often contradicted the intentions. However, this does not invalidate the logic of what happened and the consequence of these changes that we observe today. The concepts of “stability” and “Middle East” next to each other have not always looked very harmonious. Nevertheless, the twentieth century (after the collapse of colonial empires) contributed to the establishment of a certain balance in the Middle East. Its basis was the Cold War and the patronage of the great powers, which determined the general rules of the game. They are not immutable, but rather stable. The collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War abolished these rules, says Fyodor Lukyanov, Director of Research at the Valdai Discussion Club.
Then, for almost 25 years, the United States played the first violin. No one could compete with its power. At the same time, the previously competing ideological categories of “socialist choice” and “free world” lost their significance. Other entities began to fill the empty space that had arisen in their place. The principles of Western liberal democracy were declared universal – it was believed that they should be the destination for all Middle Eastern states. Two other trends emerged in parallel – political Islam (from moderate to extremist) and reliance on a solid secular power as a guarantee against archaism and the collapse of the state. Paradoxically, Islamization was structurally more in line with liberal intentions, since it opposed authoritarian regimes. Meanwhile, the latter insisted that only they could contain Islamic radicals.
The avalanche was brought down by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The US response to the stunning attack, in addition to the retaliatory operation against Afghanistan, where the terrorists were located, was also the decision to transform the Middle East. The “support of democracy”, which the neoconservatives considered the most effective measure for ensuring general security, led to the fight against authoritarian leaders and de facto to the support of political Islam, although this was not the goal. The main structural upheaval was the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the previous form of statehood there. This not only gave a strong impetus to religious extremists, including the emergence of the phenomenon of the banned “Islamic State”, but also destroyed the regional geopolitical balance, of which Iraq was a key element. The sharp strengthening of Iran, the new ambitions of Turkey and the more confident position of the Persian Gulf powers created a different atmosphere in the Middle East. All the more so since the United States, which initiated these changes, was bogged down in two endless and incomprehensibly necessary military campaigns.
Other events – the Palestinian split caused by elections forced upon it, the Arab Spring, the rise of ISIS, the bloody civil wars in Libya and Syria accompanied by active external intervention, the strife in Yemen and Sudan, and the problems in South Sudan, which arose under pressure from the outside world – were the consequences of the loss of this very regional balance.
The disappearance of peripheral areas
To put it simply: the collapse of authoritarian systems in the Middle East made political Islam the only available form of democracy. Islamization, in turn, meant attempts to return rigid systems, which began to appear as the lesser evil against its background. In Egypt and Tunisia, this was successful, but in Libya and Iraq it was not, and statehood there is now somewhat precarious. The most recent example is Syria. The Russian military intervention in 2015 managed to stabilize the situation, but only temporarily. Syria is now rapidly going through all the stages – from the overthrow of an authoritarian leader and the rise of “democracy” in the version of radical Islamists to an attempt (probably futile) to introduce a new form of autocracy there by the same Islamists who need to somehow govern the country. There are reasons to believe that Syria will soon become another state with unclear sovereignty and indeterminate borders.
The chaotic processes have also led to the fact that the non-Arab countries of Iran, Turkey and Israel have become key players in the region with a predominantly Arab population (perhaps also because the Arab countries, although they willingly issue all sorts of statements, are trying to avoid risks and wait and see). It is noteworthy that Iran, Turkey and Israel represent three models of socio-political structure that have formed on their own and have been least exposed to the innovations of recent decades: an Islamic theocratic republic with elements of pluralism, a democracy with a strong military-political center and a liberal democracy of the Western type. The differences are obvious, but they have one thing in common: in all three countries, domestic processes are inextricably linked with their foreign policy behavior, primarily on regional issues. The border between foreign and domestic policy simply does not exist.
For Iran, which was able to expand widely thanks to American activities, participation in the “Axis of Resistance” became not only an ideological and political, but also an economic factor, given the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the national economy. Turkey, under Erdoğan’s leadership, firmly linked external issues (Syria, Libya, Africa, the Caucasus, Ukraine) with internal ones (the Kurdish question, strengthening its economic position, confrontation with the opposition). Finally, since the beginning of the 2000s, Israel has been trying to strengthen its security by transforming the entire region (it is no coincidence that George W. Bush Jr. was inspired by the book on democracy that Natan Shcharansky gave Netanyahu). Today, this transformation has taken on a purely forceful form. The strikes on Iran are an attempt to complete the change in the situation around Israel, which began with the defeat of organizations allied with Tehran (Hamas, Hezbollah).
The liberal world order, which reached its zenith in the early 21st century, fueled the disintegration of the former Middle East. It was thought that “liberal democracy” would finally bring peace and stability to the troubled region. This did not happen. Then, among the “bearers of progress”, the desire to deal with the Middle East began to fade, and soon the liberal order itself began to shrink on a global scale. As a result, any order in the Middle East began to crumble, accompanied by a sharp increase in the struggle of various actors – from governments to sects, from religious communities to ethnic groups. External forces continued to play a significant role, but it was clear that they had to adapt increasingly to changing circumstances beyond their control.
Today we are witnessing a struggle between two powers whose apparent confrontation has largely determined the course of the story in recent years (let Turkey not be offended: its role is undeniable, but it behaved more subtly and did not pursue its interests directly). The outcome of the battle is not predetermined; Iran missed a very serious blow, but was not knocked out. Nevertheless, there is a consequence that is already visible. And it is symbolic. The metaphor – “the victor over the dragon who becomes a dragon himself” – seems too literary and rather trite. However, against the background of ongoing collisions, political systems seem to be converging.
Today’s Israel is ideologically and politically different from the Israel of 20-25 years ago, when it was an outpost of the West among anachronistic and mostly strictly authoritarian regimes in the region. Currently, Israel can compete with Turkey in terms of the manageability of its political system. And from an ideological point of view, liberal democracy in Israel is gradually being replaced by a militarized, religiously and nationalistically oriented consciousness. Its embodiment is the current government led by Netanyahu.
Of course, one could argue that it is impossible to demand liberalism and democracy in the context of an acute military crisis that began in October 2023 with the Hamas attack. But firstly, these tendencies began even before this tragedy. Secondly, it is not about the causes, but about the process itself: having begun in a time of war, it is capable of continuing further. All the more so since there are fewer and fewer voices opposing official positions. The mainstream has changed.
The Middle East will change. The dream of both Donald Trump and the Israeli right is to physically eliminate all threats, dig up the countries that were their carriers (primarily Iran), and finally begin to solve the region on the basis of mutual benefit. The “Abraham Accords” for the benefit of all. The utopia of universal democratic union, dreamed of in the early 2000s, is being replaced by a utopia of rationalized mercantilism with reliance on force. Force was there even then to help democratize those who, for some reason, were in no hurry to be on the right side of history. All this led to what we are witnessing right now. How today’s transformations will end, we will see tomorrow. However, there is a suspicion that their result will be the same, added Fyodor Lukyanov.
Peter North
