Israel has made its third attempt in 8 months to destroy Iran. This time it has got what it always wanted – the full power of the United States as its instrument.

In previous pieces the present writer has asked the question of Trump: Is it America First or Israel First? That question was answered on Saturday 28 February. 

On that day Israel launched a “preventative” attack on Iran, followed up by the full weight of US power, assembled in the vicinity over a period of weeks for that purpose. 

Israel, knowing that the US does not hold to the Grand Old Duke of York example of marching men up to the top of the hill, and marching them down again, decided to capitalise upon the presence of Trump’s armada and detonate a war.

Diplomacy again proved to be just the starter before the main course. Impossible demands were made the occasion of war. Or perhaps the risk that diplomacy might succeed made war necessary. 

Last June Netanyahu launched a sneak attack on Iran while the US and the Iranians were engaged in negotiations. Then followed Israel’s 12 Day War on Iran, resulting in the deaths of thousands. But Israel bit off more than it could chew on that occasion. Iran fought back in a series of measured counterpunches, driving the aggressor back to his corner, beaten and bloodied. 

Netanyahu called in Big Brother, like a tag-team, to rescue him from the war he started. Big Brother “obliterated” the Iran nuclear programme with one bomb and declared victory.

The war was over – or Round One was over. 

Round Two began at the turn of the new year. It also proved unsuccessful. The Iranian Rial was collapsed by a concerted effort on the money markets. This provoked a strike in the bazaars and large street protests. An insurrection appeared out of this through Mossad agents and agent provocateurs, aided by smuggled Starlink terminals and Kurdish rebel incursions.

This was all publicly admitted in Israel and the West. But the state responded forcefully, and people rallied to the state and the insurgents were dispersed with great loss.

The problem for Israel was that after the insurrection faltered there was no US force in the region to follow up. And Israel was fearful of engaging in open war, knowing what it had got the last time – before it had Big Brother at its back.

After launching the latest sneak attack on Iran – as was done last June – Netanyahu made the following statement (translated from Hebrew):

“My brothers and sisters, citizens of Israel, a short while ago, Israel and the United States embarked on an operation to remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran.

I thank our great friend, President Donald Trump, for his historic leadership.

For 47 years, the Ayatollah regime has called for ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America.’ It has spilled our blood, murdered many Americans, and massacred its own people.

This murderous terrorist regime must not be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten all of humanity.

Our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.

The time has come for all segments of the people in Iran – the Persians, the Kurds, the Azeris, the Balochis, and the Ahwazis – to rid themselves of the yoke of tyranny and bring about a free and peace-seeking Iran.

I appeal to you, citizens of Israel, to comply with the directives of the Home Front Command. The coming days of Operation Roaring Lion will demand patience and fortitude from all of us.

We shall stand together, fight together, and ensure the eternity of Israel together.”

Netanyahu spoke as if he, and not the man in the USA baseball cap, was the Commander-in-Chief of the United States and its armed forces and the director of America’s manifest destiny.

It may be appropriate now to cancel the events planned to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the US founding in 1776. What was it all for?

Netanyahu’s statement was a call for chaos in Iran. He knows there is no functional opposition in the country, ready and waiting to replace the existing government. There is no alternative government prepared in advance, and trained in the art of statecraft by Eoghan Harris, as there was in 2003 in Iraq.

And that did not work out well!

It had been recently stated by Senator Lindsey Graham, a person close to Trump, that it is not the responsibility of the US to install a new government in Iran. It is up to the Iranians themselves. We therefore must conclude that the intention in Washington is to aid the Israelis in destroying a functional state, breaking it into pieces, producing the Syrian or Libyan model of (controlled) chaos. 

About a week ago John Mearsheimer made the point that, knowing the probable consequences, it was really only Israel and its lobby in the US that wanted this war:

“On 25 February 2026, I appeared on Glenn Diesen’s podcast to talk about whether the US is likely to attack Iran, especially in light of his State of the Union address the previous evening (February 24). I made the argument that one could read Trump’s address to signal that he is moving away from attacking Iran. Of course, one cannot be confident that is the case, but his rhetoric certainly pushes in that direction.

Trump emphasized in his talk that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, but that he has yet to hear these “secret words” from Iran: “we will never have a nuclear weapon.”

The Iranian Foreign Minister, however, said just before Trump’s address that ‘Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop nuclear weapons.’ That statement should satisfy Trump’s demand.

It is important to note that Trump did not demand that Iran give up its: 1) nuclear enrichment capability; 2) ballistic missiles; 3) support for Hamas. Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Those non-demands certainly facilitate a deal.

And then there is the broader context. First, every country in the world except for Israel is pushing Trump not to attack Iran, including America’s Gulf allies who usually have adversarial relations with Iran. Second General Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has effectively told Trump that there is no good military option and if he attacks he runs the risk of getting into a protracted war the US cannot win. Third, his political advisors are telling him not go to war. Trump is already in deep trouble in the polls and there is a real danger that the Democrats will take both houses of Congress in the November elections. A failed war in Iran will just make a dangerous situation worse.

There are only two major actors pushing for war against Iran: Israel and its extraordinarily powerful lobby in the US. They may succeed in pushing Trump to start a war, in which case this will be another war for Israel.”

A few days ago, Trump claimed that Tehran wanted to make a deal, “but we haven’t heard those secret words: We will never have a nuclear weapon.’” This was despite the fact Iranian officials had repeatedly said that they have no intention of building a nuclear weapon. After Trump’s speech the Iranian Foreign Minister restated this position, but to no avail. Words are only words to Trump. They have little meaning to somebody whose only restraint is his conscience.

While Netanyahu is pulling Trump’s strings it appears that Jeffrey Epstein and his vast intelligence operation on Western elites has a firm grip on the US President’s testicles.

It cannot be a coincidence that it was this last exchange which prompted the Israeli attack which drew the US into war. Netanyahu may have feared that there was the possibility that the nuclear issue was about to be solved before regime change could take place. That Trump might take a deal and proclaim victory before Israel was satisfied. He had, after all, been warning Washington since 1996 that the US needed to take action against Iran as it would have a bomb within days. If there were no bomb, there would be no leverage.

Iran had satisfied any US concerns over its nuclear programme. Any reasonable person would conclude that. But it could never satisfy the Israeli shopping list which Trump’s negotiators went with to Geneva and Oman, beneath the guns of Trump’s armada.

Iran, which had, in the previous Israel/US assaults been allowed the freedom to restrain its response to external aggression, has now been placed in a fight or die position. 

To its credit Iran has come out fighting. And there is much more admiration for it in the West than the political elites dare to admit.

One of the most innovative thinkers in the Muslim world, Shahid Bolsen, was hoping that the GCC might restrain Trump and act as a counterbalance to Israeli influence on the US President.

But as Tucker Carlson, who has truly reached levels of extraordinary bravery, noted:

“The Gulf states, the six Arab oil-producing states called the GCC in the region, are, along with Iran, one of the main impediments to Israel’s regional hegemony. They are very rich. They produce something that the rest of the world needs. They’re also very good at diplomacy, particularly Qatar. They settle a lot of disputes internationally. They’ve posited themselves as the Switzerland of the Middle East, and they’ve done a good job at it, actually. And so they are a rival to Israel…

Their sin is existing as a powerful independent entity in potential rivalry with the regional hegemon Israel. So, shafting them would be a very good thing from the Israeli perspective.”

When the Balfour Declaration was issued powerful and influential Englishmen who supported it, like Sir Halford Mackinder, saw its major positive in being that “the Jew would range himself” in future. In other words, Jewish influence would cease to be a destabilising force on the world once the Jews were given a territory and they came to act, as a consequence, like a normal, responsible nation state people. 

Of course, that was within the supervision of the British Empire. 

But in 1948 the British Empire gave up its supervision of the Jewish State under pressure of Jewish terrorism and decided to let it loose upon, first, the local population and then the region and wider world.

It was probably not envisaged that the Jewish stay behinds would be let get the grip upon the world’s most powerful democracy, its Congress and President, that they did.

The Balfour Declaration has been responsible for a monster of global proportions and we are now experiencing its full, catastrophic legacy.

Published in Irish Political Review, March 2026.