On Thursday night, Israel launched a huge series of strikes on Iran that may have driven the Middle East closer to all-out war than it has been for decades. The assault’s success in killing several senior Iranian military leaders and scientists, as well as damaging key facilities, has left Iran embarrassed as well as assaulted, with its inability to anticipate the strikes laid bare for all to see.
But if Israel’s strikes are a humiliation for anyone, it is US president Donald Trump, who had made clear both privately and publicly that he did not want Israel – one of America’s closest allies in the world – to launch the attack. The US had been due to hold talks with Iran on Sunday, a process now undermined, potentially fatally, by the actions of Israel.
Israel’s relationship with the United States is essential to its survival. Military and financial aid from the US to Israel is worth around $4 billion a year in “normal” times, but since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, the US stepped up its financial and military support to between $12-18 billion – around a quarter to a third of Israel’s defence spending. Israel relied on direct military and intelligence assistance from the US (and UK) to successfully intercept Iran’s last missile salvo in its direction.
In other words, Israel is reliant on the US being on its side. And despite that, its government felt confident that it could publicly and spectacularly disregard the wishes of Donald Trump, undermine his negotiations, and get away with it. As public displays of disrespect towards an ally go, there are few cases to match it.
What makes things worse for Trump is that this is neither an isolated incident, nor is it confined to Israel. Trump campaigned through 2024 telling Americans that they were being humiliated and disrespected on the world stage – and that he was the man who could correct that.
Trump famously claimed on more than 50 occasions that he would be able to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on “day one” of his presidency. He suggested that Hamas would not have dared to carry out the atrocities of 7 October if he were in the presidency. He promised to achieve a lasting ceasefire in Gaza within days.
And, of course, a central pillar of Trump’s campaign was the suggestion that the rest of the world was taking the US for a ride on trade, and Trump would walk in and introduce tariffs that would quickly get the US a vastly better deal than ever before.
To an unusual extent, Trump made America’s position on the world stage a major part of his pitch for the presidency, promising he could deliver unprecedented wins and denigrating the performance of Biden.
Now, mere months into his presidency, all of this has fallen apart in front of him. Any hopes of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine have faded into nothing, as Putin repeatedly embarrassed Trump by refusing to make even minor concessions – or stick to short-term ceasefires – to hand the President a “win”. Instead, Russia’s largest attacks on Kyiv have now come during Trump’s second presidency.
Trump’s idea that tariffs would deliver quick results have similarly come to nothing. The US briefly raised tariffs to China as high as 145 per cent, only to back down with zero concessions from China. Trump introduced and then suspended worldwide tariffs promising “90 trade deals in 90 days”, but so far has struggled to sign even a single one.
And on Israel, Trump’s team helped to secure a ceasefire in Gaza in the last days of Biden’s presidency, but this soon collapsed into a fresh occupation of Gaza, which has come closer to starvation in recent months than any other time during the conflict. Prospects of any deal there now look remote.
In his desperate search for something he could sign, or anything he could sell to the American people as a win, Trump was exploring signing an Iranian nuclear deal similar to the one agreed by Barack Obama – which Trump withdrew from during his first term. Trump would surely have pretended an agreement was somehow new, different and better, but now even this option is lost to him, as Israel has essentially done what it wished and dared the President to do anything about it.
Trump has approached diplomacy as if it was reality TV deal-making, as if a tough show for the cameras will do most of the work and the detail will sort themselves – disregarding the slow, agonisingly detailed diplomacy that typically delivers real results.
The consequence is an America that is flailing, insulting its allies for no purpose, and flattering its enemies for nothing in return. Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to publicly show up Trump is the most blatant humiliation inflicted on Trump to date, but it is an inevitable consequence of the President’s own empty bluster. The man truly believes himself to be the world’s greatest negotiator has across the world, and has come back with nothing. That must be quite the blow to the ego.
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