Israel's room to respond militarily has been restricted in an unprecedented manner. And its international credibility, which it will need on the day Iran violates the agreement, has collapsed
Is U.S. President Donald Trump the one who threw Israel under the bus (which he was driving)? Or was it Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who decided that this was the surest way to commit diplomatic suicide?
Had this been a legal issue, the law would have provided an answer to the question – namely, that the bus driver is absolved of liability if it can be proven that this was an intentional suicide and that the driver didn't have enough time to avoid hitting the victim. But in the diplomatic arena, the drama is much more complicated.
Let's imagine that the family of the one committing suicide – in this case, the State of Israel – were to sue Trump for encouraging Netanyahu to take that desperate step. After all, the two marched arm in arm into a war against Iran that was doomed to fail. And Trump even hit the gas while still under the influence of the intoxicating drug of power.
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But after that, the country would find itself facing off against Trump's battery of aggressive lawyers, who would file a monster countersuit and seek to prove that Netanyahu was the one who led Trump astray by lobbying and dragging him into his suicidal campaign against Iran. One can only imagine the damages they would sue for. That's Trump's field of expertise.
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Fortunately, this is only a hypothetical exercise. But disastrously, the real-life diplomatic damage is tangible, enormous and bloody. It includes the collapse of Israel's international standing, a major erosion of its deterrence capabilities and a strategic rift with Washington and the American public. Israel's room to respond militarily has been restricted in an unprecedented manner. And its international credibility, which it will need on the day Iran violates the agreement, has collapsed.
The weeping and wailing over the "poisonous content" of Trump's memorandum of understanding with Iran – though nobody in Israel, including by his own admission, Netanyahu, knows what it contains – may be justified. But let's assume that the final agreement proves spectacularly bad – that it includes only weak supervisory mechanisms, that Iran will exploit every ambiguity and that the sanctions against it will be removed too quickly and in exchange for too little.
In that case, the question shouldn't be whether the agreement is imperfect but whether Israel has any ability to take action against its negative consequences. That answer, thanks to Netanyahu, isn't encouraging.
Self-defense in the face of a problematic agreement rests on three pillars: credible intelligence about violations, full cooperation with the United States and military freedom of action if diplomacy fails. Netanyahu has smashed all three.
Intelligence depends on credibility and credibility depends on partnership. But the partnership has been eroded year after year – with Netanyahu's speech to Congress in 2015, arranged behind U.S. President Barack Obama's back; with his open contempt for proper working relations with the Biden administration; and by acting in a way that made even the Trump administration negotiate with Iran while demonstratively ignoring Netanyahu.
When the Iranians violate the agreement, Israel will need Washington to believe Israel immediately, act quickly and provide it with backing. But is there anyone in the U.S. capital who would believe the man who promised to topple the Iranian regime in the blink of an eye?
Military cooperation has been dealt no less of a blow. The supply of arms is the easy part. But Israel's ability to attack Iranian facilities depends on logistical coordination,intelligence from the United States and at least tacit consent from Washington. And all of these depend on decent relations.
But the criminal policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the shattering of Israel's own democratic foundations – the shared values on which the alliance is based – have made any such cooperation politically impossible for any American president, including Trump, who has already been barraged with criticism for capitulating to Israel's caprices.
As for freedom of military action, any Israeli action without U.S. backing and regional support would be an irresponsible, even suicidal, bet given Israel's diplomatic isolation.
The result is that Netanyahu has not only failed to influence the agreement between the U.S. and Iran. He has ensured that his Israeli Sparta would face it without tools to deal with its failure. But at least we'll still have our fingernails to fight with.