We don’t know who is behind them, but undermining Israel in its struggle against Iran should be no one’s idea of ‘America First.’
We don’t know who is behind them, but undermining Israel in its struggle against Iran should be no one’s idea of ‘America First.’
A mid-April New York Times report with no fewer than four bylines described in alarming detail the plans for Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear sites — an operation that was allegedly supposed to take place this month.
It was revealed that the operation would require U.S. logistical support, and Israel would depend on American military capabilities in the region to defend the country against Iranian retaliation. With the help provided by sources who offered up “confidential discussion inside the Trump administration,” the Times revealed that President Donald Trump was persuaded to reject the Israeli plan.
“Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, presented a new intelligence assessment that said the buildup of American weaponry could potentially spark a wider conflict with Iran that the United States did not want,” the Times said. “A range of officials echoed Ms. Gabbard’s concerns in the various meetings,” the report continued, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice President JD Vance.
Some of those figures argued the president into his present efforts to secure a new Iran nuclear deal — an effort that began with an outline for something closely resembling Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and now looks closer to a deal that this administration could accept, which is also why the whole enterprise may be close to collapse. Iran is not inclined to voluntarily give up its capacity to enrich uranium — something that Trump himself once understood.
The leaks to the Times, some of which were as likely to have come from Israeli sources as Trump officials inside the defense and diplomatic establishments, seemed designed to frustrate and forestall Israeli action by exposing its operational preparations to the world. It’s reasonable to conclude that a reprise of this same strong-arm tactic via willing intermediaries at CNN is designed to achieve the same effect.
“The US has obtained new intelligence suggesting that Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, even as the Trump administration has been pursuing a diplomatic deal with Tehran,” CNN reported, citing “multiple U.S. officials” who divulged this highly sensitive information. If it wasn’t clear enough that the purpose of this second leak is to weaken the Netanyahu government’s hand, the story’s second paragraph makes the objective explicit: “Such a strike would be a brazen break with President Donald Trump, US officials said.” In addition, “It could also risk tipping off a broader regional conflict in the Middle East.”
It’s not exactly a mystery as to where these leaks are coming from. There is some dark humor value in the fact that these disclosures to the mainstream press are likely emanating from figures who are the most outwardly hostile toward legacy media outlets; but the appeal to the president’s foremost value — loyalty — is an unmistakable reveal.
The politics of this are, however, secondary to the threat to Israeli security that has been exacerbated by “U.S. officials” and the weakening of America’s position vis-à-vis its adversaries in Tehran. The revelation that American officials have observed “the movement of air munitions and the completion of an air exercise,” both of which signal final preparations for a strike on Iranian targets, for example, is valuable to Israel’s enemies — those both in its neighborhood and in the West.
One “U.S. official” even had the gall to insist that these disclosures amount to tough love for the Jewish state. After all, the source divulged, it has “consistently been the Israeli position that the military option is the only option to stopping Iran’s military nuclear program.”
Those who hoped that the second Trump administration would abandon the Biden administration’s skepticism of Israel’s tactics and motives are properly dispirited today. These two leaks look a lot like the October 2024 disclosure of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency intelligence detailing “Israeli military preparations for a potential strike on Iran” and emphasizing “intense American concerns about Israel’s plans.”
If the estimates that suggest an Israeli strike would only temporarily disrupt the Iranian program weren’t enough to dissuade Jerusalem from taking its security into its own hands, exposing the details of the operation to Israel’s enemies and, thus, increasing the human costs of an attack just might. The leaks were a grotesque dereliction, but the motives behind them might have been even more sordid.
Coming on the heels of Trump’s refusal to visit Israel during his swing through the Middle East, his secret negotiations with Hamas, and the side deal he cut with the Iran-backed Houthis, the Israeli government is prudentially obligated to question its ally’s commitment to its security.
The effort to create “daylight” between Trump and Netanyahu may constrain the Israeli government in the near term, but it reduces Washington’s influence over Jerusalem in the long run. The Netanyahu government may conclude that it cannot wait around for the United States to take advantage of the window of opportunity presented by Israel’s successful decimation of Iran’s terrorist proxies.
Outside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, sacrificing U.S. leverage over its steadfast ally in pursuit of an illusory détente with its sworn enemy is no one’s idea of “America First.”