Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasby far spent more time with President Trump than with any other world leader. Netanyahu, on Wednesday, will make hisseventhvisit to the U.S. since Trump’s second term began a little over a year ago, on top of the visit to Israel made by Trump in October. No other leader has visited the White House during Trump’s second term more than twice. The duo will once again meet at the White House.

The Israeli leader is traveling to Washington this time in order to impose as onerous conditions as possible on Trump’s desire to sign a deal with Iran that would avert a second U.S. attack on that country in the last eight months. “I will present to the President our positions regarding the principles of the negotiations,” Netanyahusaidbefore boarding his presidential plane this morning.

In June, Trump ordered the U.S. military to bomb several of Iran’s underground enrichment facilities in the midst of Israel’s 12-day bombing campaign. After those strikes, TrumppronouncedIran’s nuclear facilities “completely and totally obliterated.”

Yet over the past two months, Trump has ordered the deployment of what he called a “massive armada,” led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, headed to Iran. On Truth Social, Trumpemphasizedthat the deployment of military assets to Iran is larger than what he sent to Venezuela prior to the removal of that country’s president by the U.S. military. Trump added: “Like with Venezuela, [the U.S. armada] is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”

Indeed, Trump has explicitly and repeatedly threatened Tehran with “violence” and “very steep” consequences in the event that the two countries fail to reach a long-term agreement governing Iran’s nuclear program — the same one that Trump insisted had been “obliterated” last June.

Trumpstatedover the weekend that he believes negotiations with Iran are going “very well,” arguing that “they want a deal very badly.” Numerous reports have suggested that Trump’s strong desire for an agreement instead of war has put him at odds not only with many of his most hawkish pro-Israel advisers, but also with Netanyahu. Today’s trip is thus being depicted as one between two leaders who have very different views of how Iran should be dealt with, thus implying that Netanyahu’s trip is an act of desperation to prevent Trump from reaching peace with Israel’s arch-nemesis.

All of that might be encouraging if not for the fact that this was the exact playbook run by Israel and the U.S. prior to their last joint bombing campaign on Iran. In the weeks leading up to Israel’s surprise attack, Trump hadrepeatedly assuredthe public, and Iran, that he believed negotiations were rapidly progressing to a deal that would render unnecessary military conflict with Iran.

And, just as now, coordinated leaks — typicallylaunderedthrough Axios’ always-helpful Barak Ravid, the former IDF soldier who served in Israel’s notorious intelligence Unit 8200 —depicted a major riftbetween the two leaders as a result of Trump’s refusal to sanction a war with Iran. It seems clear that last year’s reports of a major “rift” were designed to lower Iran’s guard against what Trump ultimately acknowledged was a jointly planned U.S./Israel attack.

Source: Glenn Greenwald