U.S. and Israel publicly disagree on attacking Iran’s energy infrastructure. Why wouldn’t Israel want the Gulf’s oil and gas to go up in flames?
Trump and Netanyahu at the White House after a joint press conference, Sept. 29, 2025. (White House /Daniel Torok)
Wednesday, March 18 and Thursday, March 19
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The past two days of the aggression against Iran has exposed a significant split between the master, Israel, and its more powerful servant, the United States.
Israel would not have had its long-sought for war of expansion against Iran without the United States and specifically, without Donald Trump. Every president before Trump denied Israel, and specifically Benjamin Netanyahu.
Despite Trump commanding more fire power, Netanyahu commands something more lethal to Trump.
So when Trump tells Netanyahu not to strike Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure because Trump needs energy prices low and because he covets Iran’s untapped reserves the way he coveted Venezuela’s, what does Netanyahu do?
He bombs a huge oil depot near Tehran causing acid rain to fall on the inhabitants of Iran’s capital city. And then, despite Iranian warnings that it would retaliate against energy installations in the Gulf, Netanyahu attacks the Iranian half of a huge gas field in the Gulf Iran shares with Qatar.
This led to Trump publicly criticizing Israel. And Iran responded by attacking oil and gas infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Kuwait.
Why would Netanyahu care about what Trump says about Israel publicly, when it is what Israel can say about Trump publicly that matters?
Why would Netanyahu care about the destruction of the Gulf Arabs’ spectacular wealth when Israel’s desire since the 1982 Yinon Plan and the 30-year old, 1996 policy paper, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” has been to reduce surrounding Muslim lands to ruin, the better to project Israeli dominance over the entire Near East and its resources?
This is Netanyahu’s war, not Trump’s.
It is Netanyahu’s call to name Iranian targets, not Trump’s.
It is Netanyahu’s determination whether to pursue the Gaza playbook of total war on Iran and Lebanon, not Trump’s.
And if total war leads to the near destruction of Iran, Lebanon and Israel, it will be the one possessor of the ultimate weapon in the region who will determine whether or not to use it.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Larry Johnson says US troops are moving in what likes a US ground invasion of Iran.
hxxps://sonar21.com/looks-like-donald-trump-is-serious-about-puting-us-boots-on-the-ground-in-iran/
Trump is only about winning by any means. Loss or withdrawal is beyond his comprehension. So how can he win when Iran holds the missile and the Hormutz cards? Easy. Manufacture global public outrage that would legitimize the obliteration of the Iranian state, by nuclear weapons if necessary. Get some European oil tankers sunk in the Hormutz strait; get US marines tied down and wiped out on Kharg Island; get an Australian military surveillance plane shot down in the Middle East. Plenty of body bags and debris to generate US and global acceptance that Iran must be completely destroyed. Then, with US help, give Netanyahu his Iran obliteration outcome he has always been seeking. It was never about peace, oil supplies or global financial markets. It was always only ever about destroying Trump’s enemies. Journalist Craig Murray has recently expressed similar views.
When will these Arabs be thoughtful enough to understand, to be men of their land and kick out those endangering the middle east?
The roaring lion waits to steal the kill from the epic fury hyena .
Here take this , and this,
the hyena grunts and growls
while laughing at the lion ,
he thinks
Trump could pull the plug on Israel, if he had the courage. It’s what most Americans want. But doing so would be an admission of having blundered into the war. Also, it might open the floodgates to unflattering Epstein-related revelations about himself. So, Trump will just let the whole world suffer. In his view, that’s the smart thing to do.
AI & Neural Drones (IoT/IOTD): Israel developed brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for soldiers to control drone swarms, deploying “mother launcher” platforms to target IRGC repression forces in Tehran, March 11-12.
Advanced Manufacturing Facilities: Startups like Firestorm Labs are developing shipping container-sized “3D-printing drone factories” that can produce 50+ drones a month with limited human-in-the-loop engagement.
Iranian Quds forces utilize dhows to bypass blockade, importing components for drone factories in Syria/Yemen.
And then there is ‘Witch Path to Persia Brookings Institution paper from 2009’ that explains the “split” and blame game.
Yes good point. As Wesley Clark stated they planned on going after 7 countries, they destroyed Syria, and the last on their list is Iran. Brian Berletic pointed out that under each president since George W Bush they’ve made progress in their goals.
It is by now widely reported (outside the USA) that Czar Donald I was fully aware of America’s 51st state’s plans to bomb Iranian energy infrastructure. It was yet another lie from the world’s biggest liar that the USA was unaware of the plans. This is of course obvious to anyone who knows how modern military equipment works. Two sure facts. America has intense radar coverage over the region, and thus sees anything that flies. Including Israeli planes. And, modern planes are designed to be ‘network’ capable, meaning they hook into the command networks to receive and send information. Thus, US Centcom would have been aware of the strike, at least from the moment that the Israelis booted up their planes, and certainly from the time they took off. Israel is of course aware of this, and would have told the USA in advance of the attack.
“… he attacks the Iranian half of a huge gas field in the Gulf it shares with Qatar. ” This refers to PM Netanyahu of course. This piece thus presents only the American version that somehow the Israeli’s are acting on their own on this stuff. The people who read almost any news sources outside “The Empire of The Free World” know the reality. Even before the Europeans at Reuters broadcast the truth, most analysts outside The Empire had surmised that the USA had to know in advance.
Israel is America’s 51st state, and Israel’s military is very closely integrated with the US military. These are facts that should never be forgotten.
Knowing in advance is not the same as approving it. It is not in Trump’s interests to have approved these Israeli strikes. He may have at first said he didn’t know about it to protect himself from being seen to be disobeyed. But then Trump said, “I told him don’t do that.” And Netanyahu did it anyway. The issue here was never whether the Americans knew about it or not, as this comment falsely portrays. This article does not present an “American version” of events. The article does not say America didn’t know about it. This entire comment is wrongly framed. The story here is that Israel is calling the shots, not caring that the US knows about it. Israel is not doing stuff behind America’s back but brazenly in front of its face, with chutzpah.
It is a classic strategic mistake for a large power to put itself into a position where its smaller and weaker ally can control the events. This can lead to the small power leading the large power into a confrontation which is not beneficial for the large power.
Only a very foolish leader of the large power would allow it to be in such a position. Czar Donald I and his Rasputin, the preacher lady who speaks in tongues, appear to qualify.
Thank you Joe, What would Israel do? Shut down any investigation into assassination of Charlie Kirk and continue to refuse responsibility for USS Liberty, and the assassination of Sen. John Tower in April 1991. Mossad left 23 bodies down in the “Golden Isles” of GA April 1991 and no one ever investigated. Sen.Tower’s plane crash (Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311) was an act of terrorism and the killing of their ‘longtime Texas friend’ was omitted in Bush Sr., Dubya’s and Clinton memoirs. Dr. Sonny Carter was also killed on this flight; he was on a NASA mission at the time,43 yrs. old. Dr. Carter would be 79 today.
“We had already dug up a decent amount of leads,” Kent told Carlson, saying it was his center’s job to investigate “foreign ties” in cases like Kirk’s murder,>>>before higher authorities ordered him to stop<<<. “There was more work for us to do on the potential of a foreign nexus.”
Joe Kent quoted in todays Times of Israel
+ Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom
?? MAX BLUMENTHAL ?? : What Joe Kent Knows and Why He Dumped Trump
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9H7IKU7No4&list=TLPQMTkwMzIwMjbJzNwpuUNE2A&index=2
+ October 1991: The Noose Tightens
"In the weeks before his death, Robert Maxwell had become increasingly paranoid. Something hadn't felt right for a while – people were out to get him, and he didn't know whose side anyone was on anymore.
The first warning had come six months earlier when Senator John Tower died in a plane crash. Twenty-two others perished with him on Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311." (Tower was on Maxwell's publishing payroll)
+ Dr. Sonny Carter, 43, a Navy captain who flew on a secret military mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery in November, 1989, had been living near Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Ga., with his wife, Dana. He was a skilled soccer player at Emory University in Atlanta and was the first American drafted by the now-defunct Atlanta Chiefs of the professional American Soccer League. He played for them from 1970 to 1973. After receiving a medical degree, he became a Navy flight surgeon, then a pilot, then a test pilot and, in 1984, an astronaut.
+ Also on board was Dr. Nicholas Davies, president-elect of the American College of Physicians, a 60,000-member industry
group, said Dr. Louis Felder, who worked with Davies at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Davies's distinguished medical career influenced the city's major medical institutions, Congress and the Altanta public library system. Dr. Davies, an attending physician at Grady Memorial Hospital and Piedmont Hospital, also taught at Emory University's School of Medicine. The internist and cardiologist was president-elect of the American College of Physicians. A former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon, Dr. Davies testified before Congress in behalf of poor Americans needing health care. "He was a fine man," said William Breyer, a weekend administrator at Grady. "He was very patient-oriented and very caring."
Boiling this down: Trump appears to the be the loose-cannon, crazy man— the public face of shameless indifference and self-dealing. While it is Netanyahu who is the deeply insane psychopath— the charming serial killer.
It is so cliche; hard to imagine that such a playground dynamic is running present world geopolitics.
It is best not to be drawn into the Kabuki theater about which is madder than the other and which is responsible. The real answer is that the only person the people of the USA can hold responsible is the elected official who is making the decisions. The sign on the President’s desk used to read “The Buck Stops Here.” It still does, even if Czar Donald I has gilded everything in sight in his manic redecorations.
In a democracy, the only person who can be responsible is the person who is responsible to the voters. It is a dangerous fiction that the American people have foolishly accepted that says that a President can somehow have plausible deniability for what is done by people under their command on their watch. And all of this smoke and mirrors about Trump and Netanyahu is only designed as an illusion to keep American voters from realizing this basic fact about democracy.
Trump is responsible!
Lock Him Up!
Yes, Trump should be immediately removed from office, tried for war crimes (along with Rubio, Hegseth, Pentagon brass who went along with Operation Epstein Fury, and maybe Vance), then imprisoned for life – or EXECUTED. Of course, all surviving Israeli leaders (Netanyahu and others are allegedly already eliminated) should face the same fate. They need to be made examples of.
Trump has been buying and gifting Florsheim shoes for his key officials to meet his dress standards, guessing at their sizes and often getting it wrong. The shoes are often too big or to small but his officials wear them anyway to express their loyalty. This is pure cult behaviour. The US has an unhinged nut job for a leader, a deranged guru running a death cult.
This is what imperial colonialism has done to life on earth. Thanks to the Brits and the Balfour Declaration, Israel now holds humanity hostage to its whims. The master has become slave and possibly doomed us all to a horrendous fate. Well played assholes.
If the poisonous, polluting, profligate Pentagon actually was concerned about protecting the U.S., they would help Iran bomb Israeli military & intelligence facilities. Put the duplicitous, untrustworthy Israeli zealots in their place.