Iran may be a common enemy of both the United States and Israel, but President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu differ in assessment of their respective country’s national interests and ideas on how to deal with the Iranian threat. This has been obvious from the start of the second Trump administration but came into sharp focus when the Israelis launched their strikes against Iranian targets on June 13, 2025.
Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House on February 4, 2025, and discussed Israel’s interest in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel had already cleared a path by destroying early warning and air defense systems during the April and October 2024 exchanges of fire.
[The Iranians] were used to negotiations with the Obama and Biden administrations where words had no meaning and there were no repercussions for obfuscation and delays.
The Israeli delegation told Trump and his national security team that their window of opportunity was closing as Iran worked to reconstitute those capabilities. Trump was adamant that he wanted to make a good faith effort to negotiate an end to the Iranian nuclear programs before taking the final step.
There have been multiple reports that Trump’s subsequent negotiations were an elaborate deception the two leaders cooked up. The media love a conspiracy, but the answer was simpler. Trump and Netanyahu were both acting in their own strategic interests and they were both simply telling the truth.
The Israeli position that Iran was close to nuclear breakout and that the back door opened by Israel’s previous attacks was closing were both facts. Trump’s statements he wanted to do everything possible to make a viable deal were true as well.
If there was a deal to be made, Trump was going to make it. It would have to be a real deal, not an Obama deal redux. The red lines were dismantling all existing programs and no enrichment of uranium. He also put a sixty-day limit on these efforts to ensure Iran could not try to delay the inevitable or run down the clock. The Iranians made the mistake of thinking these were empty words. They were used to negotiations with the Obama and Biden administrations where words had no meaning and there were no repercussions for obfuscation and delays.
As the negotiations began, Iranian recalcitrance suggested they did not understand the new reality. Secretary of State Marcio Rubio made a public offer to allow Iran to have a civilian nuclear power program. This was a reasonable offer. By rejecting it and demanding enrichment capability, Iran walked right into the trap the Trump team had set for them. Refusing showed their true goal: Tehran wanted an autonomous path to a bomb. If the aim was peace, they could have imported fuel for their civilian energy program in the same way that other countries do around the world.
Now that the Islamic Republic’s intentions had been revealed, the U.S. message was clear: Dismantle your programs or they will be dismantled for you. Again, Iranian hardliners failed to grasp that they were being told the truth. That miscalculation would prove disastrous to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regime.
Days before the Israeli strike, Trump told Australian-American columnist Miranda Devine that he was losing faith in the sincerity of Iran’s interest in a deal.
Media speculated last month that there was a rift between Trump and Netanyahu because of their disagreements over both Gaza and Iran. Their differences were real, but both leaders assured the world their relationship is strong and each was simply doing what was in his country’s best interest. They told the truth. The mis-assessment of their relationship came because the media and chattering classes were unused to honest statements and took them as cover for a falling out, for which many journalists actually hoped.
Days before the Israeli strike, Trump told Australian-American columnist Miranda Devine that he was losing faith in the sincerity of Iran’s interest in a deal. He reminded the Iranian regime of the consequences for failing to reach a deal. “It would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying,” Trump said. “But I don’t think I see the same level of enthusiasm for them to make a deal. I think they would make a mistake, but we’ll see. I guess time will tell.”
Trump’s warning went unheeded. The day before Israel’s strike, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon.” All of that was true. Iran’s own inability to understand that Israel might act independently was less to do with a lack of truth and more to do with Tehran’s blinkered analysis.
Trump and Netanyahu both spoke truth. Ironically, this served to confuse many, including Iranians and their cheerleaders. It also made Israel’s latest strike successful. Both leaders now enter the next phase of resolving the Iran problem stronger than they were before.
