Trump's 'America First' allies fear Netanyahu will push US deeper into Iran war

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during his last in-person meeting at the White House, reportedly sold President Donald Trump on starting a war with Iran.

Now, the GOP’s America First wing fears he’s about to pitch the president on ramping up attacks.

“I think all of President Trump’s most ardent non-‘Israel First’ supporters are furious,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “Netanyahu has had twice as many visits to the White House in 18 months as Churchill had in all of World War II — with every one of them a disaster for America First.”

The two men are set to meet Tuesday morning for the first time since the two countries attacked Iran in February, with Netanyahu in Washington to attend the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. The meeting comes at a moment of tension between the two allies: While Trump has long defended Israel, he has grown increasingly willing to publicly criticize Netanyahu for being too aggressive with Lebanon.

It also arrives at a pivotal moment in a war that has dragged on for five months, with the U.S. teetering between attempts at peace and a more aggressive phase of war . U.S. and Iran suspended nearly two weeks of tit-for-tat strikes over the weekend amid hopes for a new ceasefire deal, but Trump continues to threaten “massive attacks” on the country after an earlier peace agreement fell apart this month .

Many of the president’s anti-interventionist allies had hoped the latest ceasefire attempt would lead to a permanent end to the conflict. Instead, they’re grappling with the possibility that Netanyahu, who is visiting the U.S. for the seventh time since Trump took office last year, may instead push the president into a new, more durable phase of war that could leave the U.S. embroiled in conflict in the Middle East for months, if not years.

The meeting comes as new polling shows that a growing share of the president’s base no longer believes the war is worth its economic costs. And Republicans are increasingly resigned to the fact that the war will likely still be hanging over voters in some form when they head to the polls in November.

Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine, described the meeting as “DEFCON 1.”

“Netanyahu is going to argue for the essential logic of escalation, which — if Trump is not willing to give the [memorandum of understanding] a chance and if Trump is not willing to walk away from the conflict entirely without a resolution — then I think we probably will escalate, and that’s what we’ve been seeing these last couple of weeks,” Mills said.

Trump allies concede that Netanyahu wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t try to persuade the president on further military action that would guarantee an end to Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“I’m interested in seeing how forward-leaning Netanyahu is about wanting a U.S. engagement in that way. I mean, is that something he wants to do privately? Is that something he’s going to say publicly?” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term. “Netanyahu is going to push his agenda, which I don’t think in this instance necessarily is compatible with our interests, but I have no concern that Donald Trump is going to be manipulated by any leader into doing something that’s not compatible with America’s interest first.”

A White House official, granted anonymity to preview the meeting, said the two leaders will discuss the Iran conflict, the trilateral agreement between the U.S., Israel and Lebanon as well as expanding the Abraham Accords, the agreements establishing diplomatic normalization between Israel and a handful of Arab countries.

“All of President Trump’s decisions are guided by what is best for the American people and our national security,” the official said.

Netanyahu has not been to the White House since the launch of the war, despite months of efforts to secure another invitation. Until Monday, the White House had not publicly confirmed the meeting, details of which were only just finalized as officials prepared for Graham’s funeral.

Strikes between the U.S. and Iran remain paused, though Trump on Monday threatened that the U.S. would “go back to doing what we were doing” if the latest attempt at diplomacy fails. Netanyahu could ultimately shoulder the burden of blame if the war continues to drag on — potentially deepening strains between the two allies.

“Netanyahu is kind of a problem-maker at the moment, right? This war has consumed the last five and a half months or so. There’s not a clear solution to it,” said a former official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics of the meeting. “Trump probably, publicly or not, blames Netanyahu partially or associates him with a thing going badly. It’s not like it has to be his fault. It’s that he’s associated with it. And the president’s pissed off about it.”

Trump, who faces increasing pressure at home to bring the war to an end ahead of November’s midterms, has grown increasingly vocal in his frustration with Netanyahu. At the G7 summit last month, he criticized Israel’s continued military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon as he sought to promote a fragile peace deal. And his vice president, JD Vance, has also sharpened his attacks against Israel , accusing Netanyahu’s government of undermining U.S-Iran negotiations in an effort to drag out the war.

Proponents of the U.S.-Israel relationship are hoping that the Tuesday meeting helps mend fences between the two leaders as they continue to pursue a shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“The one constant and the one area in which there is zero daylight between the prime minister and the president is that under no circumstances will Iran ever have a nuclear weapon,” said Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “And to his credit, despite some of the political costs associated with this, President Trump has remained absolutely resolute in this, and he could very easily do what previous presidents have always done, and just kick the can down the road and make it somebody else’s problem.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) added that the meeting is “better than having them not talking to one another.”

The Israeli prime minister, who faces reelection in October, needs Tuesday’s meeting to understand Trump’s next steps — whether he intends to return to the memorandum of understanding or move toward further escalation, said Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special representative for Iran in Trump’s first term.

But Netanyau, who has built much of his political identity around confronting Iran’s security threat, also enters Tuesday’s meeting from a position of significant political risk as the two leaders are poised to broach several difficult subjects, including Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

“The stakes are higher for Netanyahu both because Trump, not he, is the decision-maker here,” Abrams said. “And because his job and not Trump’s is on the ballot.”

Alex Gangitano, Riley Rogerson and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.