Trump and Netanyahu Have Royally Screwed Each Other Over

The Iran war has not turned out the way they promised, and they’re suffering major political blowback as a result.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu share a lot of traits. They are both solipsistic, mendacious, narcissistic, and paranoid megalomaniacs who perceive themselves as victims of a cabal of elites. Now they share something else: They have lost a war together. Driven by vanity and hubris, the U.S. president and Israeli prime minister miscalculated Iran’s mettle, and now their mutually inflicted failure is causing them considerable political harm at home. What started as a Smith & Wesson partnership has degenerated into a Thelma & Louise ending.

In the U.S., there has been no rally-around-the-president effect from this war. Every day, another poll shows Trump’s approval rating hitting a new low and support for the war below 40 percent. As The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, his public “bravado” is a mere mask for his private fears about the damage the war is doing to him as he stares down the November midterm elections that appear certain to cost him unified control of Washington.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu is getting clobbered on all sides. The New York Times reported Friday that “the prime minister’s critics, and even some of his allies on the right, have seized on ... his inability to resist Mr. Trump’s pressure” to end the war. Netanyahu’s coalition, like Trump’s, is also lagging in polls in an election year. “A core element of Mr. Netanyahu’s appeal to voters—the argument that his close bond and strategic mind meld with Mr. Trump make him uniquely equipped to ensure Israel’s security—now appears far less convincing,” the Times noted.

As reporting from the aforementioned outlets has shown, Netanyahu prodded and, some might say, dragged Trump into a war America had no interest in. In that sense, Netanyahu is responsible for Trump’s political damage. But with all due respect to Netanyahu’s swindling qualities,........

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