Netanyahu Is Trying to Drag Trump into Changing Another Regime: Iran’s
Then, in June 2025, Netanyahu persuaded Trump to join a risk-free (for the United States) attack on Iran. In exchange, the prime minister said, Israel would end the war in Gaza. A gullible and ill-informed Trump agreed, the U.S. attacked, but the Gaza war did not end until September, and arguably until ever, so far.
Now Netanyahu is at it again, and Trump is as malleable as ever. In their meeting on December 30, 2025, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump threatened Iran with military action with a grinning Netanyahu next to him. Trump upped the ante, declaring that if Iran continues with its missile development and tests, the U.S. will respond. Two days later, on January 1, he said, “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re gonna get hit very hard by the U.S.” He repeated the threat on January 3 after the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, speaking to reporters on Air Force One.
But that wasn’t all. He threatened Venezuela, saying, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike,” after boasting, “We’re in charge … we’re gonna run it,” a statement contradicted the next day by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump concluded his tour d’horizon of the Western hemisphere by noting that Cuba “is ready to fall” and Colombia should be careful. Intoxicated by his own Kool-Aid concoction, Trump rambled on about how “we need Greenland from a national security situation.”
