Did Israel Force Trump Into War?
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This is A.G. Sulzberger. I'm the publisher of The New York Times. And I'm also a former reporter who's watched with a lot of alarm as our profession has shrunk in recent years. Normally, this is where I'd ask you to subscribe to The Times. But today, I'm encouraging you to support any news organization that's dedicated to original reporting. Whether that's your local newspaper, a national paper, or The New York Times, what matters most is that you subscribe to a real news organization doing firsthand, fact-based reporting. And if you already do, thank you.
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitcheleff. This is The Daily. Mr. President, did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war? No, I might have forced their hands. Six days into the war, the role that Israel has played in driving President Trump to attack Iran has become a major point of political tension.
Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn't want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.
The key questions have been, to what extent is a foreign country shaping the actions of the U.S. commander-in-chief?
We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
And how did Trump get on board with something no American president had ever agreed to? Waging a joint war with Israel against Iran.
Have we now delegated the most solemn decision that can be made in our society, the decision to go to war to another country?
Today, my colleagues Mark Mazzetti and Ronan Bergman on what we know about the extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israel and how that partnership affects the endgame in Iran. It's Thursday, March 5th. Mark, Ronan, we wanted to bring you both onto the show because you've both been covering this conflict in Iran. Ronan, you from Israel and you, Mark, on the D.C. side. You are writing a book together. You are often reporting partners. And it is so wonderful to have you both here today.
Thanks for having us. Thanks, Natalie. Pleasure.
So, Mark, you told us when you were on the show a few days ago that part of the lead up to the war in Iran involved Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbying hard for it with President Trump.
What role did Israel play in urging Trump to strike Iran?
And over the last few days, the extent to which Netanyahu may have been a driving force behind this conflict has become a much more central question here. And we want to go deep on that today to try to answer the unanswered questions about how much Israel is actually determining the shape of these attacks, which have now continued into a fifth day, and the degree to which this war is about what the U.S. wants versus what Israel wants. How should we think about that?
So publicly over the last few months, we've seen President Trump take this sort of circuitous path to war. Does he really want a strike? Does he want a deal? Does he want peace? Who knows? So it's been very unclear which direction this was going. But I think the real story is that behind the scenes, This was every day pushing closer to war. And also behind the scenes, the constant was the pressure of Prime Minister Netanyahu to get Trump there. And that issue blew up this week after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that, in essence, the war began because Israel was going to begin it. and that the United States needed to protect itself from possible Iranian attack. So in other words, Israel was driving this and the U.S.
was responding as if there was no choice but to join the war that Israel started.
Right. These comments by Rubio were seized upon. They were immediately controversial.
Right, because it already touches a point that many, particularly in President Trump's party, have criticized, this idea that Israel and Netanyahu are getting the United States into wars in the Middle East, ultimately driving American foreign policy.
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