US-Iran deal may leave Israel's Netanyahu as biggest casualty
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The biggest casualty of the US-Iran deal may not be Israel’s Iran strategy, but the political brand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent decades constructing as the Israeli leader who could uniquely bend Washington to his will on Iran, analysts, former US officials and diplomats say. Netanyahu built his political identity on an audacious assertion: that he alone could keep the US and Israel in strategic lockstep on Iran. Cultivating Republican support, he cast himself as the only Israeli leader capable of influencing successive US presidents and insisted that only sustained military pressure could contain Tehran. At the height of his power, he was described by diplomats as the “American whisperer”, the Israeli leader who could pick up the phone and ensure Washington’s strategic calculus aligned with that of Israel. US President Donald Trump welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the entrance of the White House in Washington, DC, the US on April 7, 2025. — Reuters/File No other Israeli prime minister, they note, addressed Congress as often or built such enduring political capital across the American political system. But analysts say Washington and Tehran’s interim pact to end the war that the US and Israel launched in February shows how that narrative has been reversed. Rather than shaping Washington’s Iran policy, Netanyahu is now forced to accept it, as US President Donald Trump pursues a settlement that increasingly treats Israeli objections as constraints. At home, the reckoning is equally stark, said former US official Dennis Ross. “Netanyahu is increasingly boxed in between a US president intent on ending the conflict and a domestic base resistant to concessions, particularly in Lebanon,” he said. Withdrawal risks political backlash, while escalation risks confrontation with Washington. The war Netanyahu hoped would cement his legacy as the leader who confronted Iran may instead be remembered as the conflict that dismantled a central source o