Perhaps the most telling comment on the war on Iran came yesterday from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In addressing reporters at the Capitol he declared: “”We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
It was expected that this would then “precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”
Which casts an entirely different light on America’s relationship with Israel and is indicative of the volte face executed by Trump since the days following his inauguration in 2017 when he was publicly telling Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements.”
It is largely forgotten now – as are most things in this superficial ticker tape age of click bait headlines – that one of if not the main appeal of Trump to the “deplorables” was his promise to withdraw the United States from its role as global policeman. Trump also rejected the notion of “regime change” as a justification for launching attacks on other countries no matter how nasty the regime there.
The adoption of that role had cost the lives of more than 7,000 American servicemen during the wars and interventions which took place under the Bush, Clinton and Obama adventures. In his April 27, 2016, keynote Presidential campaign foreign policy speech Trump had condemned all of those military operations as a colossal waste of lives, money and as examples of “randomness.”
More to the point they had achieved nothing other than to exacerbate regional instability and leave people who were to be “liberated” in almost every case in a worse situation than the one they were allegedly being freed from.
Nor was there any moral compass. The United States, either openly or covertly through its intelligence agencies, had shown remarkable promiscuity. The former allies like the Taliban who it had helped to virtually create and arm against the Soviets later became enemies who forced the Americans into a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan as they had done the crumbling Soviet Union.
In the Gulf, the Americans were the backers of Saddam in Iraq when the vile Baathist regime there launched a war against Iran. They provided billions in logistical support and aid and some even claim that the spooks in Langley had encouraged the Iraqis to invade. Later of course, Saddam became the bete noir when he pushed his luck in Kuwait.
And best not to look too closely at the American and Israeli opaque dealings with the Islamists including Hamas who were once handy to have as a cat’s paw against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation but got too big for their boots.
In the April 2016 Mayflower ‘America First’ speech, Trump had also stressed that the United States could not continue to subsidize the defence of its allies. A reference which might have been taken to mean Israel as well as America’s NATO partners in western Europe. However, the only substantive mention of Israel was as the only democracy in the middle east.
There has been a noticeable shift towards Israel since Trump was re-elected in 2024. Although the New York Times reported in April 2025 that Trump had attempted to block more aggressive Israeli actions against Iran including strikes on nuclear facilities, in effect Israel has just done as it pleased – including in Gaza – and the Americans have backed them after the event.
What is different about the current war on Iran is that it is a joint measure and seemingly embraces the very concept of ‘regime change’ that had been the excuse for the Bush family, Clinton and Obama to embark on their wars. One that Trump had explicitly rejected as a reason for Americans going to war.
What exactly is the Israeli objective in all of this? On the face of it they can claim to need occasionally to keep Iran in its box, as it were. They regard the Iranian backed and Lebanese based Hezbollah as a threat and respond usually pretty ferociously to the occasional and mostly inept rocket barrages. One obvious objective as evidenced by the Israeli accompanying actions in Lebanon is to seriously weaken Hezbollah.
The question for the United States and Trump is whether they ought to blindly follow every Israeli decision to embark on yet another military operation. If it is to be a ‘global policeman’ then it surely needs to be impartial and to abide – as it generally has done – by the rules of how to ensure that local tensions do not escalate into global conflict?
Especially if the Israeli decision to strike Iran is motivated by issues way beyond the normal public discourse and the ken of the vast majority outside of the Middle East: a narrative occasionally revealed as when Netanyahu used the analogy of Amalek – the enemies of the Jews found in the Torah – for Iran and Hamas.
While it is unlikely that the worldly Bibi is motivated by such esoterica it does him no harm to cite these references and even to place the current conflicts in the context of Jewish prophecies. Indeed, the often-cited basis for the existence of the state of Israel is scriptural including, where it suits, parts of the Christian Old Testament.
This may appeal to what can be fairly described as the nutjobs who Netanyahu needs to keep on side as he relies on the support of smaller sectarian parties such as Otzma Yehudit, which is led by Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, to stay in power.
The scriptural stuff also appeals to the no less politically significant element among American Protestant Evangelicals who overwhelmingly support Trump, or indeed any Republican incumbent or candidate. They are the ones who espouse the theologically dubious if not absurd notion of ‘Judeo Christianity.’
‘Judeo Christianity’ of course is strongly Zionist, which is fair enough, but the Evangelical Protestant take on the conflict in the Middle East is also scripturally based and regards it as the place where the last war between Gog and Magog mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39 will take place. That corresponds closely to the Zionist prophecies on the end times.
And if that does not keep you awake of a Spring night, also ponder the fact that there is a strain of Shia theology (the dominant sect of Islam in Iran) which regards the conflict with Israel and the United States (primarily because it is an ally of Israel) and all the terror and chaos that involves as part of the preparation for the return of the Mahdi.
The question for what used to be known as the Christian West is how does it avoid being dragged into the quagmire of primeval hatreds that seek deliberately to embroil everyone else on the planet in their Armageddon. Especially if an increasingly erratic White House no longer appears to place that at the head of its worldview.