EXCLUSIVE: There are fears US President Donald Trump will dodge the Middle East and turn towards China as Israel “feels forced” to go against the American-Iran deal
US President Donald Trump’s disastrous deal with Iran means Israel will be forced to launch a double-policy of both defying it and obeying it, a senior Israeli officer has stated.
The memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the US and Iran agrees there will be no fighting within Lebanon – sparking fury amongst many Israelis. They believe Israel has to maintain the independent right to defend itself, attack Hezbollah and that means troops will have to operate outside of the MOU.
Meanwhile Israel will continue to attack Hezbollah, in defiance of the MOU, but likely at a more measured tempo of war. Israeli war veteran Brigadier General (res) Assaf Orion – told the Daily Mirror : “Israel is fighting in Lebanon to remove the threat to its citizens and communities. Trump wants to stop it to allow the MOU to flow forward, so I think since the MOU has a 60-day window, Israel has to manage itself within it, then beyond it.
“Israel insists on disarming Hezbollah. Hezbollah resists even more so after the MOU, because it came back from the dead some kind of a Lazarus Hezbollah.” And there is a risk Trump’s head will be turned towards China, which the west has long considered the bigger long-term threat. Bdr Gen Orion, former head of Israel’s military Strategic Planning, and other intelligence and liaison roles, added: “What I think we could see in the last weeks is that America is saying, okay, let’s cut our losses.
“We still have China to deal with. Let’s finish the Middle Eastern war before it becomes an unending war, an endless war that Trump has sworn to prevent or to avoid, and they don’t want to see Israeli skirmishes in Lebanon undermining this.” And on Trump’s fury with Netanyahu on attacks inside Lebanon he added:
“What we heard from Trump is that he wasn’t happy with how it looked, and with the proportionality, and with the methods, to the point where he said “you don’t have to bring down a building because a Hezbollah member went in.” And he cited Trump’s bizarre and ridiculous idea of the new Syrian government – led by former al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa – leading the war on Hezbollah.
He said: “And President Trump said that Ahmad Sharaa might do it, might do a better job, which was quite interesting, given the record of Jabhat Nusrah or all-Qaeda people being known as very distinctive in their targeting. So I think we have the next problem at hand. Trump wants to close the war and to get to results in the negotiation and move on to the next problem, and it includes Lebanon, and Netanyahu has to answer to his own public because the northern communities are still unsafe.
“The IDF is inside Syria, but it’s under attack because there is still a gap in its capability to protect against First person View drones. And all of this does not amount to removing the threat from Hezbollah. So they’re looking at two ends of the same problem.
“You know what’s the difference between a long time and a short time? It depends if you are standing by the grill or sitting on it. I don’t think that Trump feels the pain that Israel feels about it, but the consolation here, I would say we are supposed to be able to operate independently in Lebanon, regardless of US support, in this sense, but it’s difficult for us to defy US constraints.”
