Amid Iran-Israel's fragile truce, Trump and Netanyahu battle to control war narratives

Straits Times

5 hours ago

A ceasefire is now in force in the Middle East, and it appears to be holding, says the writer. PHOTO: AFP
- There is little doubt that US President Donald Trump has emerged much strengthened as a result of his handling of what he calls the '12-Day War' between Israel and Iran.
By ordering US jets to bomb Iranian nuclear installations, Mr Trump has reaffirmed America's close strategic bonds with Israel.
Yet the US leader also managed something all his immediate predecessors in Washington had failed to achieve: get Israel to stop fighting at a time of America's choosing.
After what a visibly angry Mr Trump described as an 'extraordinarily tough and direct' phone call with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 24, the Israeli leader ordered his jets to turn around in mid-flight and stop hitting Iranian targets.
A ceasefire is now in force in the Middle East, and it appears to be holding. So, the American leader can claim with some justification that his immediate strategic objectives were met.
'It was my great honour to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!' Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social, his favourite platform.
The snag for Mr Trump is that at least some people in the US intelligence community do not believe that Iran's nuclear capabilities have been destroyed.
And the current ceasefire is unlikely to give the US much respite, either.
The US administration is embarrassed by a leaked report apparently compiled by the Defence Intelligence Agency, a branch of the American military, which seemingly suggested that Mr Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities were 'obliterated' was overstated.
US and Israeli raids on Iran's nuclear facilities – the leaked report allegedly concludes – may have succeeded only in delaying Iran's quest for nuclear weapons by around six months.
Ms Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, rushed to dismiss such claims as 'flat-out wrong' and as 'a clear attempt to demean President Trump'.
The administration has promised to provide the US Congress with detailed briefings on the impact of the US attacks on Iran.
Yet, almost regardless of what it does, the Trump White House is likely to remain on the back foot.
It probably matters very little when the full bomb damage assessment on the US attacks is released, or what that assessment will say, for the Washington administration is certain to be accused of 'doctoring' the intelligence information to suit its political needs, and no assessment is likely to be accepted as either definitive or accurate by supporters or critics of the US government.
Either way, the struggle to control the narrative about the latest war will plague Mr Trump for a long time.
Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu is struggling with his own battle to control the political narrative.
Mr Trump's decision to name the Iran-Israel confrontation as the '12-Day War' represents a shrewd nod to Israel.
The name evokes another brief previous conflict, the Six-Day War, which occurred in June 1967, when Israel decisively defeated the armies of all its immediate neighbours.
That episode is regarded in Israel as a pivotal moment in the emergence of the Jewish state as a modern, technologically superior actor, able to reshape not only its immediate surroundings, but also the rest of the Middle East.
Mr Trump evidently wants to flatter Israel into believing that the latest clashes with Iran are just as significant as the war fought more than half a century ago.
And to some extent, the brief war between Israel and Iran is transformative for the Middle East.
The Israelis not only hit hard Iran's nuclear installations but also destroyed Iran's air defences, the bulk of Iran's missile stocks and Iran's regional proxies, including the much-feared Hezbollah, until recently considered the world's most potent non-state militia.
And, conversely, Iran is at its weakest since the establishment of the Islamic Republic back in 1979.
So, soon after the ceasefire in the Iran-Israel war took hold in the early hours of June 24, Mr Netanyahu rushed to claim 'a historic victory' for Israel, and rumours spread that he may well dissolve the current Israeli Parliament and call early elections.
But political euphoria in Israeli government circles soon subsided for at least three reasons.
First, the fact that Israel was forced to stop the fighting under the direct and very public orders of Mr Trump reduced Mr Netanyahu's ability to claim a complete victory and his claims that he enjoyed a close strategic bond with the US President.
Furthermore, although the Israeli Prime Minister's popularity ratings have risen as a result of the war with Iran, most of his new votes appear to come from the electorate of the far-right smaller parties in his current governing coalition, rather than at the expense of the centre-left opposition parties.
So, although Mr Netanyahu is more popular at the moment, he still risks losing a snap election, because he has not succeeded in shifting the fundamental electoral balance.
And then, there is the awkward fact that, try as hard as he may, Mr Netanyahu cannot ignore Gaza, where the Israeli military remains bogged down in a cruel war which continues to inflict untold suffering on Palestinian civilians, but does nothing to gain the release of the 50-odd Israeli hostages still kept by Hamas, the militant Palestinian organisation.
Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Gaza on June 24 – this was the single largest Israeli military loss in many months, and a sober reminder that the Gaza war remains one conflict in which Mr Netanyahu cannot claim any victory, let alone a supposedly 'historic' one.
The received wisdom in Israeli political circles is, therefore, that Mr Netanyahu will not hold snap elections and continue in office until the end of his current electoral mandate in October 2026.
The problem for the Israeli Premier is that, soon enough, whatever he claims to have achieved by striking Iran will be forgotten by his electorate.
Ordinary Israelis are beginning to cast doubt on their country's legendary missile defence systems.
While these worked well, intercepting around 90 per cent of all incoming Iranian rockets and drones, the missiles that got through inflicted quite a bit of damage in Israeli cities, and shattered many illusions about Israel's supposedly impregnable defences.
Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami has announced that his country will soon restart its nuclear programme.
In the Middle East, a ceasefire remains a very relative and perishable concept.
Jonathan Eyal is based in London and Brussels and writes on global political and security matters.
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