During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said that he will allow Israel to attack Iran once again to strike its ballistic missiles.
But what exactly does that mean? Will the U.S. be involved in the actual strikes? Will it "limit" its involvement to shooting down Iran's retaliatory missiles?
If the former, Trump is not just "allowing" Israel to strike; the U.S. will actually be at war with Iran. This would be a betrayal of his promise to his base to keep America out of wars (he has, of course, violated that already).
Moreover, unlike the nuclear program, which incorporates a small number of known facilities, the missile program is spread throughout the country in a large number of hidden facilities, many of them probably unknown to the U.S./Israel.
Thus, Trump will likely not be able to frame this as mere "military action" rather than war. Nor will he likely be able to negotiate with Tehran a limited Iranian response since the missiles are Iran's last line of defense — the last leg of its deterrence.
Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with Washington, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford to do so in this scenario. Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at U.S. targets.
Even if Trump opts to "only" support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war — which is the position Biden took — it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the U.S. is lessening the cost for Israel to do so.
The cost to the United States is great even in this scenario. Washington depleted 25% of its THAAD interceptors in the course of 12 days this past summer — for Israel's war of choice, in a region four American Presidents have declared no longer is vital to U.S. national security.
As I wrote last week, every time Trump caves to Netanyahu and agrees to another war, it only prompts Israel to come back to Trump after a few months with another war plan for Americans to give their blood and tax dollars to.
This will go on endlessly until Trump decides to end it.
