Israel-Iran conflict: Where exactly does Trump stand? – DW – 06/17/2025

DW

5 hours ago

US President Donald Trump calls himself a "peacemaker" — but also labeled Iran's Supreme Leader an "easy target." So where does he really stand, and are he and Israeli PM Netanyahu on the same page?
Israel's assault on Iran was discussed with Washington before it was launched. "There were no surprises here," said Fox News anchor Brett Bair after an interview with US President Donald Trump last Friday.
The US government has made clear that it was not actively involved in the attack, though questions arose on whether this would remain so when the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was rerouted from the South China Sea to the Middle East. And on Tuesday, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the US knew the exact location of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
"He is an easy target, but is safe there," Trump wrote. "We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now."
On the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, Trump never tired of repeating that he had no desire to allow the US to get caught up in global military conflicts. In his January 2025 inaugural address, Trump called himself a "peacemaker," pledging to use the might of the US to "stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity" to the world. Speaking in Saudi Arabia in May, he announced the dawn of a new era of peace in the Middle East.
The front page of an Iranian newspaper reporting on recent nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran Image: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images
What's Trump's stance on Iran?
Not much remains of this peaceful attitude in the wake of Israel's full-on assault on Iran. On Monday night, Trump wrote on Truth Social that "everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran."
In a previous post, he wrote that he had given Tehran's leaders "chance after chance" to sign a new nuclear deal, warning that if they failed to sign one, Iran would face an attack worse than anything they could imagine. Trump wrote that hardliners who had come out against an agreement "are all dead now," adding, "it will only get worse!"
Delegations from both nations have met several times since April, with the aim of negotiating a replacement treaty for the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) deal that Trump withdrew the US from in 2018. Trump claims his aim has always been to ensure that Iran can never build a nuclear weapon — which was also the aim of the JCPOA. Beyond military and civilian targets, Israel's attacks also hit Iranian nuclear sites.
An attack on Iran's state broadcaster: Tehran appears incapable of protecting critical infrastructure from Israeli assault Image: IRIB
Is Israel leading the US into war?
So where does Donald Trump actually stand in this conflict between the hardline governments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran?
British-Israeli political scientist Daniel Levy, president of the non-profit research institute US/Middle East Project, suggests Israel may have convinced the US that a military attack against Iran could help advance nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.
Levy also told DW it was no coincidence that Israel had chosen this moment to attack. "I think one of the primary motivating factors for Netanyahu was to act now because were there a break-through in the talks, he would probably feel sufficiently constrained by the Americans not to act."
In any case, Trump decided not to red light Netanyahu's attack on Iran, wrote Willian F. Wechsler, in a blog post for the US think tank Atlantic Council, where he is director of the Middle East program. There was no specific demand that Israel refrain from attacking, therefore, "we should assume that Israeli leaders would have interpreted the absence of an American red light as a de facto green light," wrote Wechsler.
Trump stuck in the middle
In May, Trump made headlines by firing his national security advisor, Michael Waltz, who had created headaches for the administration by erroneously adding a well-known journalist to a chat group discussing secret US military plans on the messenger service Signal. But research by the Washington Post newspaper found that something else had in fact led to Waltz's firing: Trump's advisor is said to have had intense discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu about possible military options for dealing with Iran — and that, prior to Netanyahu's visit to the White House. The paper wrote that Waltz, "wanted to take US policy in a direction Trump wasn't comfortable with…"
Was National Security Advisor Michael Waltz fired for pushing policies Trump wasn't comfortable with? Image: Ben Curtis/AP Photo/picture alliance
So where does the US commander-in-chief stand exactly? Does he oppose military action against Iran, or does he see it as grounds for celebration? In Levy's view, the US president is tacking back and forth because his own MAGA (Make America Great Again) base is highly divided on the issue of military deployments in the Middle East.
There's "a fissure in MAGA-world," says Levy. On one side, there are those who are all in on Trump's "America first" approach that puts US interests above all else. The last thing this group wants is for the US to become involved in a distant conflict that they feel does not directly affect them. On the other side are Trump's many conservative Jewish-American and evangelical Christian supporters, who believe the US must support Israel — even militarily if necessary — no matter what. Levy says the situation is risky.
"There's also a question here of whether the rest of the world will see an America that can be led by the nose into a military confrontation by an ally who acts out of turn," says the political scientist. "That's not a good message to send."
Israel-Iran conflict: 'Deciding factor is likely Washington'
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This article was originally published in German and was translated by Jon Shelton.
Edited by: Jess Smee