Behind the White House’s closed-door diplomacy

U.S. President Donald Trump made a highly unusual diplomatic move this week. His July 28 meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took place behind closed doors in the Oval Office for 90 minutes, and no news conference followed.

Media reports around the world have suggested the secrecy reflected Netanyahu’s waning influence or growing dissatisfaction with him within the Trump administration. That explanation, however, is not entirely convincing.

Looking at the sequence of events — the U.S.-Ukraine summit followed immediately by the U.S.-Israel summit — offers important clues to what the Trump administration was trying to accomplish. Based on the limited information available so far, one interpretation stands out.

Ukraine recently announced that its military had attacked an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea carrying weapons destined for Russia. Both Iran and Russia have denied the claim, but it is widely accepted that the two countries are coordinating. Why, after suffering what appeared to be a major blow to its air defense systems, is Iran still able to accurately strike U.S. military bases in the Middle East with missiles and drones? It is almost certain that Russia is providing Iran with detailed information about those bases.

This suggests that the Middle East and European theaters are becoming a single theater of operations. Furthermore, it indirectly supports the argument that the theaters in the Middle East, Europe and the Indo-Pacific are gradually merging into a single theater of operations.

Trump cornered

Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to attend the funeral of the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. Seizing the opportunity, the Trump administration held summit meetings with the two leaders in rapid succession on the morning of July 28. To this longtime diplomat, the urgency and closed-door nature of both meetings suggest that the Trump administration is being pushed into a corner.

Yet because Trump’s government has recently taken a clearer stance in support of Ukraine, its handling of the war with Iran appears to be under the greatest pressure. If that is the case, the central question is what strategic differences exist between the United States and Israel — and whether they surfaced during these meetings.

Possible outcomes

On that point, although both countries have issued statements such as “We reaffirmed our shared goal of absolutely preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons” and “We coordinated our strategies under a full partnership,” few experts take those statements at face value. Various analyses have already been published, but only five possible outcomes or scenarios appear plausible.

First, both administrations agree to fight the war against Iran through to the end. Second, Israel exercises restraint regarding the war while the United States continues fighting. Third, the United States no longer wishes to fight, but Israel intends to continue. Fourth, both countries agree it is time to move toward a ceasefire involving certain concessions. Fifth, neither country’s position — particularly that of the United States — has yet been clearly defined. At present, these appear to be the only five plausible scenarios.

Regarding the first possibility, if both countries continue fighting, the conflict will likely escalate further, playing into Iran’s hands, and there is a high probability that both the United States and Israel will become trapped in a quagmire.

The second possibility is the scenario closest to the current situation: The United States continues fighting while Israel exercises restraint. However, even if that continues, there is still no clear way out.

The third possibility is a scenario I’ve written about at length in which the United States moves toward concessions to Iran — what might be described as an “honorable surrender” — while Israel vehemently opposes that approach and insists on continuing the fight alone, leading to a serious clash between U.S. and Israeli leaders. If that happens, Israel will become even more isolated, raising the risk that both the current U.S. and Israeli governments could lose their legislative majorities in future elections.

The fourth possibility is that both the United States and Israel become reluctant to escalate the war, make repeated concessions in some form and move toward a full ceasefire. However, that would effectively mean the United States tacitly accepts Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz while failing to impose meaningful constraints on Iran’s nuclear program, increasing the likelihood of a complete defeat for both Washington and Jerusalem. Domestically, the political consequences could prove even more damaging than under the third scenario.

The final possibility is that neither side develops a coherent strategy and nothing is decided. If so, it would reflect the current reality of the Trump administration, and unless that changes, it is difficult to imagine any meaningful progress toward ending the war. In short, none of the five scenarios offers an easy way out for the Trump administration.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the “enemies of peace” that have repeatedly destroyed opportunities for negotiation in the Middle East have resurfaced at this critical juncture.

Elusive peace

History has repeatedly shown that whenever the possibility of peace emerges in the Middle East, forces opposed to it often act independently to undermine negotiations before they can take hold. During ceasefires with the Palestinians, Israeli hard-liners have often provoked new incidents.

Likewise, negotiations with Iran have at times been derailed by Kwantung Army-style actions by hard-liners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a reference to Japan’s Kwantung Army in Manchuria, whose officers in the 1930s repeatedly acted without authorization, forcing the government to accept military escalations after the fact.

In short, while the summit between the Trump administration and Israel was intended to explore a way out of the war with Iran, the surrounding circumstances were extraordinarily difficult, making it unlikely that the talks produced significant progress. If that assessment is correct, U.S. diplomatic drift is likely to continue and a path out of the war with Iran will remain elusive for the foreseeable future.