There are growing signs that Benjamin Netanyahu is deliberately seeking an escalation between Israel and Iran and preparing for another round of war. Iran’s precision-missile testing and missile production are the pretext, and widespread protests taking place in Iranian cities have rekindled Netanyahu’s grand delusions of precipitating regime change in Iran.

More importantly, there are increasing indications that he is trying to manipulate President Trump into joining such an adventure. Trump, infatuated with his abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and believing that he has already effected a regime change in Caracas (even though the Maduro regime is technically still in power, but never mind that), sounds amenable to Netanyahu’s antics, and not for the first time. Netanyahu was critical in persuading Trump to unilaterally withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, (the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018. It’s Obama’s deal, Netanyahu told Trump. You can do much better, he argued, catering to the ultimate dealmaker’s ego. This was based on the false premise and reckless promise that Iran would collapse economically and beg for a new and improved nuclear deal that would also cover long-range ballistic missiles. French President Emmanuel Macron warned Trump to no avail that this was unlikely. Eight years later, it still hasn’t happened.

Then, in June 2025, Netanyahu persuaded Trump to join a risk-free (for the United States) attack on Iran. In exchange, the prime minister said, Israel would end the war in Gaza. A gullible and ill-informed Trump agreed, the U.S. attacked, but the Gaza war did not end until September, and arguably until ever, so far.

Now Netanyahu is at it again, and Trump is as malleable as ever. In their meeting on December 30, 2025, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump threatened Iran with military action with a grinning Netanyahu next to him. Trump upped the ante,........

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