Trump and Netanyahu started the war together. Only one is determined to keep fighting

April 14, 2026 — 5:00am

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Benjamin Netanyahu was Donald Trump’s only ally in starting the war on Iran. He will be important to ending it, too.

Trump’s critics portray him as a captive of Netanyahu’s war fever. This suspicion was fed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. At the outset, he said that “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” against Iran, “with or without American support”.

Israel’s attack would have provoked an Iranian retaliation against US assets in the region, he said. So, the US had to attack Iran preemptively.

Some of Trump’s most vociferous MAGA cheerleaders have excoriated him for being a tool of Israel. “The Israelis have him in a hammerlock,” said Tucker Carlson.

Trump contradicted Rubio. The chain of cause-and-effect ran in the opposite direction, said the president: “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. But Israel was ready and we were ready.”

But Trump critics will not be persuaded. Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid makes the same claim: That Netanyahu “dragged us – and pushed the US – into war”.

Reporting by The New York Times last week has given new impetus to this accusation.

In the White House situation room on February 11, “Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint US-Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic,” write Jonathan Swan, formerly a political reporter for the........

© Brisbane Times