If Trump could force Netanyahu to stop bombing Iran today, he could have forced Netanyahu not to start bombing Iran yesterday, writes former defense intel analyst Harrison Mann.
By Harrison Mann, reposted from Zeteo, June 8, 2026
“I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate,” Donald Trump declared last night, just hours before Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu did in fact retaliate, striking Iran. Trump claims he called back, threatening, “Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.”
If we are to believe the multiple interviews the president made time for during a 24-hour geopolitical crisis, Trump put an end to the latest ceasefire-threatening cycle of escalation, which began yesterday when the Israeli prime minister bombed Beirut, prompting Tehran to attack Israel for the first time since the start of the April ceasefire, leading Netanyahu to cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza and, despite Trump proclaiming “I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” bombing Iran anyway. After a plaintive Trump Truth Social post calling for peace, and Yemen’s Houthis firing at Israel and threatening to close the Red Sea to Israeli shipping, Tehran and Tel Aviv stopped shooting at each other, at least for now.
Trump’s critics have called Netanyahu’s “defiance” of Trump a “humiliation“ for the president. That’s giving Trump a little too much credit.
Accusing Netanyahu of defying Trump means taking Trump at his word that he actually wanted to restrain Netanyahu last night but failed to do so. Believing him would not only require overlooking reports that Israeli officials coordinated the strikes with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but also the post-October 7 presidential tradition of griping about Netanyahu to the press while giving him anything he wants, as well as the undeniable material realities of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Trump can ‘call all the shots’ … when he wants to…
First, a reminder of where exactly Israel’s military power comes from: The Israeli Air Force jets that bombed Iran this morning were U.S.-built, likely carrying U.S.-made bombs, and couldn’t get off the tarmac without U.S.-produced repair parts, maintenance from U.S. defense contractors, and, critically, U.S.-supplied jet fuel. They were able to land safely because their bases are protected by Israeli air defense systems using U.S.-made interceptors, augmented by U.S. air defense units deployed to Israeli soil and around the region, including some that tried to shoot down the most recent Iranian missile volley. Trump could effectively ground the Israeli air force any time he wanted, if he wanted. If Trump is in the passenger’s seat for this war, he’s there by choice.
With his tough talk on Netanyahu, Trump is doing his best Biden impression, not actually ratcheting up the pressure.
But if Trump didn’t really try to stop Netanyahu from bombing Iran, why set himself up for supposed “humiliation” by claiming he was going to? The president has adopted the same nuanced political comms strategy honed to an art by his predecessor: pretending to be mad at Netanyahu. In hopes of distracting Democratic voters from the unprecedented quantities of weapons they were shipping to sustain the genocide in Gaza, the Biden administration planted endless stories about how the then-president was, in fact, privately fuming and had even called Netanyahu an “asshole.”
Flash forward to 2026, and we have Trump, not to be outdone, calling the Israeli prime minister “fucking crazy” in a series of articles nearly indistinguishable from the Biden pieces – many even written by the same journalist. In Trump’s mind, as in Biden’s, he’s not being embarrassed by Netanyahu; he’s deftly placating his base without having to actually cut down on the bombing.
Sunday’s escalation showed that if Trump can’t decide what to do, Tel Aviv and Tehran will decide for him.
Trump does fear a return to war enough that he has successfully applied some pressure, forcing Netanyahu to make concessions even if they were insufficient to secure a peace or protect civilians from the Israeli military. Trump’s April Iran ceasefire and even his largely ignored Lebanon ceasefire attempts were politically costly for the Israeli prime minister; ironically, Netanyahu’s critics say he was the one humiliated by Trump.
It could be true that Trump’s threats got Netanyahu to stop bombing Iran today, but the problem is that Netanyahu knew there’d be no consequences for his initial round of airstrikes – other than a cascade of press “exclusives” about how the president got mad or averted disaster with masterful diplomacy.
Why hasn’t Trump actually carried out his threat to make Bibi fight on his own? It’s unlikely that any of Trump’s in-house or on-TV advisers have even suggested he try to cut military support for Israel; the Israel skeptics of Trumpworld have all been marginalized and reformed like J.D. Vance or expelled like Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson. While Trump is no self-proclaimed Zionist like Biden, he’s made no secret of his healthy respect for the power of the U.S. Israel lobby and probably prefers to avoid stirring that hornet’s nest if he doesn’t have to.
And, as I wrote Saturday, Trump doesn’t feel like he has to, because he erroneously believes the current indefinitely-extended temporary ceasefire has more or less ended the war, and that he can take his time looking for his dream peace deal. Unfortunately for Trump, both Tel Aviv and Tehran beg to differ.
That difference of opinion was on full display this weekend. Netanyahu is quixotically committed to “finishing the job” and attacked Beirut to provoke Iran’s leaders into escalating and pulling Trump back into the war. Tehran wants closure through a permanent deal offering betrayal-proof gains like releasing frozen Iranian funds, but believes a return to war may be the only way to achieve that, given Trump’s foot-dragging since the April ceasefire.
Iran’s leaders violated the ceasefire by striking Israel not only to come to the aid of Hezbollah, but to show Trump that if he can’t meaningfully restrain Netanyahu, he’s going to get war. It’s a message Trump should heed. Until he imposes meaningful consequences, the Israeli government will continue to find opportunities to escalate, and the Iranian government will respond in kind, eventually resuming attacks against Gulf states and U.S. forces in the region.
Trump has to choose: Go back to war or make some concessions to get to peace. Given his aversion to making tough decisions on this conflict, he’ll probably end up having to do both.
Harrison Mann is Associate Director for Campaigns and Policy at Win Without War, a progressive national security advocacy network. He is a former U.S. army officer and intelligence official who resigned in protest over Gaza.
RELATED:
- Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say
- Finally: House votes to end Trump’s war with Iran
- Iran Never Threatened to ‘Wipe Israel Off the Map’
- This Pro-Israel Group Paved the Way for Trump’s Disastrous War in Iran
- US-Israel integration in NDAA is far from ‘America First’ – Joe Kent
