Richard Haass

and Israel over the last five or six weeks have really collaborated.

When you read the New York Times piece the other day by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Bibi Netanyahu's role in essentially persuading Donald Trump to go to war was clearly significant.

I think he pitched things that were wildly unrealistic, but the president was more than willing to buy them.

Promises of regime change and his potential to be this historic figure in the Middle East.

And then militarily, we've really collaborated closely.

over the last, what, five, six weeks.

But I think there is a growing strategic divergence.

The U.S.

priority is one, to get the Strait open, two, to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon, and so forth.

For the Israelis, what got them involved in this war was the Iranian ballistic missile inventory, and they're worried about Iranian proxies.

So the list of priorities is ranked differently.

between the United States and Iran.

Plus, Bibi Netanyahu is prepared to have perpetual war.

Now, it's not clear the Israeli public is, but let's park that aside for a second.

But he is.

And the United States isn't.

We want to get the straight open.

We want to have normalcy.

At least in principle, we should want to focus on other parts of the world, in particular the Indo-Pacific.

So I think for Israel, Iran is the big strategic consideration.