[Salon] Netanyahu: one red line too far? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

Netanyahu: one red line too far? Summary: the attack on the South Pars gas field and the heavy Iranian response reveals how a weak and foolish Donald Trump has allowed Israel to rampage through regional security and threaten a global economic meltdown. Benjamin Netanyahu in his prosecution of the Gaza war has crossed one red line after another with little or no disapproval from Israel’s friends and allies. The results are all too clear: Gaza is largely destroyed, more than 75000 Palestinians have been killed of which more than half of that figure are women, children and the elderly and more than a million are internally displaced and living in appalling conditions. Emboldened by Western silence and the staunch support of the US Netanyahu launched the war against Iran three weeks ago with the full backing of President Trump. Though it is abundantly clear almost since the conflict began that Trump has been unable to explain to the American people why he has joined Netanyahu’s war, the Israeli prime minister has always had a precise strategic objective. That is the destruction of the Iranian regime. He was able to convince Trump that now was the time to strike the lethal blow. As Sanam Vakil noted in our 18 March podcast Trump bought that line from the Israeli prime minister apparently unaware that: this war was organised and executed based on faulty assumptions. Rather than basing analysis on evidence, the Israeli system concluded, I don't know how, but perhaps influenced by activists, that the Islamic Republic was weak, and thereby this was an opportune time to get the job done and finish what was not completed after the 12-day war (in June 2025.) That was a severe miscalculation by Netanyahu and one that Trump was foolish enough to believe. In three weeks of war, though Iran has been grievously wounded with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and much of the leadership of the military, security and government structure assassinated and its armed forces heavily degraded, it is using asymmetrical warfare to successfully defend against the massive fire power arraigned against it. A key weapon of attack has been to target the economies of the Gulf states. While ostensibly claiming to be hitting US military bases in those states the regime in Tehran has stepped up its strikes hitting civilian targets while focussing on energy facilities. Throughout the war the GCC states have protested in strong language against these attacks but to little avail. That’s because as the Islamic Republic is pushed to the wall it has played its ace card. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz coupled with hits on energy infrastructure is moving close to crippling the global economy. In a major escalation, Israel attacked South Pars in Iran, the world’s largest natural gas field. Netanyahu sensing that Iran was winning this asymmetrical war and noting that Western allies have ignored Trump’s plaintive pleas for naval interventions into the Strait crossed one more red line with the attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field. That triggered a huge response from the Iranians. Qatar’s massive Ras Laffan LNG facility was severely damaged yesterday and Saudi Arabia and the UAE were targeted with missiles. South Pars is part of the largest offshore gas field in the world divided roughly equally between Qatar and Iran with the Qatari portion known as North Dome. The Israeli strike infuriated the Qataris and angered other GCC members. These countries knew that Israel had put them at even greater risk of Iranian retaliation which was quick to come. Donald Trump claimed on his Truth Social site that “the United States knew nothing about this particular attack.” It was an extraordinary admission from the Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful military. His ally had just plunged the region and the world into a new and even more dangerous crisis. Energy prices immediately spiked. Fear streaked through countries around the world that rising prices would hit everything from food to interest rates to mortgages. The dreaded phrase “a global depression” was mooted on Nicky Campbell’s popular BBC 5 Live phone in programme. Israel immediately put out a claim supported by the media site Axios that Trump had “green-lit”the attack but on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (after 8 AM) the Israeli spokesman did not answer directly to the question had the President been advised while insisting “there is no daylight between Israel and the United States.” Either way it is a bad look for Donald Trump. Either he knew and was incapable of understanding the consequences of the attack or Netanyahu simply chose to ignore the man who is providing him with the weaponry to conduct his wars in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Iran. Trump wrote in his inimitably bombastic but increasingly silly and juvenile style: NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before. So the president has told Netanyahu he mustn’t do it again, he has told the Iranians they mustn’t do it again but beyond that it is anyone’s guess as to how he will secure those aims. Meanwhile his allies in the Gulf are continuing to bear the kinetic brunt of a war they never wanted. And the rest of the world is joining them in experiencing the economic misery it is now inflicting upon all of us. So has Benjamin Netanyahu finally crossed one red line too far? The only way this war will end is through negotiations not firepower. Pressure therefore must be brought to bear on Donald Trump. He is already experiencing significant blowback from his MAGA base for breaking his promise to them not to bring America into another Middle East war. America’s allies in the West, much insulted and derided by Trump, and those in Asia need to join forces with the Gulf States and bring abundant pressure to bear on the president at the point where he is now increasingly vulnerable. The world needs to say to Donald Trump enough. Use the threat of halting the weapons flow to Israel as leverage on Netanyahu to bring this madness to an end.