Nobody is telling the truth. Why did the war on Iran start? Was it because Israel had decided to launch a go-it-alone air war, as Marco Rubio said?

Was it because Pete Hegseth convinced Donald Trump to go to war? Was it because Binyamin Netanyahu persuaded the US president that an American-Israeli assault was risk-free and would topple the regime of the Ayatollahs?

The only truth is that most of the parties to the conflict are lying.

Did the US really believe that Iran would be a passive victim and not retaliate with attacks on energy facilities? If so, the court of the idiot king in Washington is populated almost completely by jesters.

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It now appears that US policy in the Middle East and in Ukraine is being decided by Trump and by two property developers, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, neither of whom has any experience or background in international affairs, but who are using the current world crisis to enrich themselves.

When Iran predictably choked off shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliated by hitting energy infrastructure in Arab gulf states, international economic turmoil inevitably resulted.

This persuaded Trump to issue a warning that unless the Strait was reopened within 48 hours he would obliterate all Iran’s electric and energy infrastructure.

Before that threat expired, Trump manufactured an off-ramp. He now claimed negotiations were happening at a senior level between the US and senior Iranian figures which would justify a five-day postponement of his proposed energy blackout.

The US said it was dealing with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, a name on the Israeli assassination list. Ghalibaf responded by dismissing talk about talks as “fake news”.

And the US told the world that talks were happening through intermediaries, including Pakistan, and that significant progress had been made in the talks, including joint US-Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s forswearing development of nuclear weapons.

What do we make of the 48 hours to five days backdown by Trump? If he is planning “boots on the ground” operations such as an invasion by marines of Kharg Island or a special forces seizure of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles then he would need more time. Marines on Kharg Island or special forces raiding booby-trapped nuclear installations would offer Iranians easy targets and greatly increase US deaths and casualties.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu seems intent on the wholesale destruction of Israel’s world standing. The killing continues in Gaza. The killing and destruction has spread to southern Lebanon. Southern Beirut is being reduced to a rubble-strewn war zone.

Illegal Zionist settlers in the West Bank have stepped up their campaign to drive the Palestinians out of their land and homes. Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s finance minister, is openly advocating extending Israel’s borders to the Litani river in south Lebanon and expanding the expropriation of the West Bank and contracting the Gaza Strip by Israel’s Yellow Line security zone.

While Israel is engaged in this war of expansion and pursuit of Zionist ambitions for a greater Israel, Netanyahu is enjoying predictable support among Israelis who regard the present conflict as an existential struggle.

While missiles land in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other northern and southern population centres, Israelis seem to believe that the harder they hit Iran in conjunction with the US, and the harder they hit their enemies in Gaza, in the West Bank and in Lebanon, then the more secure they will be when hostilities end.

None of this takes account of the growing international hostility and revulsion which the state of Israel faces today and will do for the foreseeable future. It is notable that opinion is souring against Israel and its supporters in America and in Britain.

In the US, there seems to be a fragmentation in support from Christian and Evangelical religious groupings for the Zionist cause.

Netanyahu may see himself as an Israeli Winston Churchill. But when this conflict subsides (as distinct from ends), the damage done to Israel internationally will remain. The rubble of Gaza and the slaughter of 70,000 civilians there will never be forgotten or excused – even by the Hamas atrocities that sparked the latest crisis.

Equally, Trump has gravely damaged the United States economically and in its international reputation. His political attacks on US allies and his disgraceful behaviour towards Ukraine, coupled with his aimless mendacity in relation to the entire Middle East crisis, has done permanent and – to an extent – irreparable damage to America’s standing among the world’s liberal democracies.

All this presents huge opportunities to the Democrats in the US if they can unite behind skilful and credible leaders.

© The Irish Times