Trump Rejects Netanyahu's Request To Join War, As Israel Needs Large US Bunker Buster Bombs

   The "instinct" of Trump is most certainly "no war!". That much must be true but how long can he resist? The man has no strategy, only instincts. He will consequently necessarily, at some stage, be outmaneuvered by people who do have a strategy, and only need to find a weak point to get it implemented. 

   Netanyahu is an extremist, surrounded by other extremists. But he also controls the US Congress in a way Trump doesn't. This gives him extreme and dangerous leverage. He just need to find how to use it effectively. He has, like Zelinski, engaged his country on a path without exit, except with the help of the US. And just like Zelinski, he cannot back down, either now or later. 

  Iran is a large country, that unlike Iraq, cannot easily be defeated. More ominously, neither China nor Russia would let this happen, understanding the consequences. The country can sustain a pounding that Israel cannot being a much smaller and more advanced economy. In a couple of weeks, Iran will be burning all over and still be standing. Israel may not. At which stage Congress will put overwhelming pressure on Trump to intervene.

  This is an extraordinary game of chicken from which it will be extremely difficult to exit. I hope a solution will be found but it is hard to imagine which at this stage. Then the fog of war and the hypothetical black swans could well raise their heads.  

  Just look at how intractable the conflicts in Ukraine and in Gaza have been. We are truly slip-sliding away towards WW3. Nobody wants it, just as WW1, and indirectly WW2. But eventually there might be no other alternative. We have different world views confronting each other. Western hegemony against multi-polarism. It is abstractly what the war in Ukraine is about. It is now more concretely, because oil is involved, what the war in Iran is about. How long before the two concepts are face to face militarily?       

Trump Rejects Netanyahu's Request To Join War, As Israel Needs Large US Bunker Buster Bombs

Latest updates (2015ET):

• In the past 48 hours, Israel has asked the Trump administration to join its war effort, per Axios

• Israel seeks help targeting & destroying the fortified Fordow uranium enrichment site

• Axios says the Trump administration is so far rejecting the Israeli request

• But if Fordow remains intact, Israel's mission to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program will be considered a failure

• AJ: At least 80 people – including 20 children – have been killed in Iran and four in Israel, with hundreds wounded on both sides in the ongoing tit-for-tat attacks.

Axios underscores that "Israel lacks the bunker buster bombs and large bomber aircraft needed to destroy Iran's Fordow uranium enrichment site, which is built into a mountain and deep underground. The U.S. has both within flying distance of Iran."

Meanwhile, the images coming out of Iran show unprecedented and shocking scenes of oil refineries burning uncontrollably while nearby highway traffic has been forcibly stopped...

Via AFP