Diverging U.S.-Israel objectives restructure leverage over Iran diplomacy

Summary

Trump’s pursuit of a U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding on the Strait of Hormuz and Netanyahu’s continued advocacy for military strikes reflect two leaders pursuing increasingly incompatible strategic objectives, each armed with leverage the other struggles to credit.
Trump’s documented frustration with Netanyahu — including profanity-laden characterizations in recent calls and a new pattern of verifying Netanyahu’s claims through other administration advisers — signals a shift from consultation toward unilateral decision-making on Iran.
Netanyahu’s leverage over the outcome is constrained by dependence on U.S. military cooperation, diplomatic cover, and operational capacity, while his domestic political position — facing fall elections and an ongoing corruption trial — limits his ability to sustain a prolonged rift with Washington.
The 60-day deferral of nuclear negotiations embedded in the MOU creates a finite window in which Iran’s behavior will determine whether the U.S.-Israel divergence narrows or solidifies into a long-term reordering of the bilateral relationship.

The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding — under which Iran agreed to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the U.S. ending its oil blockade and allowing Tehran to sell oil on the market, with negotiations on dismantling Iran’s nuclear program postponed 60 days — has exposed and accelerated a structural divergence between Washington and Jerusalem that the personal chemistry between Trump and Netanyahu had long papered over. Israeli officials were surprised by the ceasefire announcement and had assessed that Trump was leaning more toward military strikes than a deal, according to Israeli officials. The gap between that assessment and Trump’s actual decision illuminates the central dynamic: a negotiation whose structure has fundamentally shifted in ways that leave Israel with less influence over the outcome than its leadership had assumed.

Two Leaders, Incompatible Objectives

The rift is not primarily a story of fraying personal chemistry, though that chemistry has clearly deteriorated. In recent calls about Lebanon, where Israel has continued striking targets despite a ceasefire, Trump told Netanyahu he was “f—ing crazy,” according to people familiar with the calls. He told Netanyahu he would be in prison without his support, asked “Why are you blowing up buildings?” and told him to “Stop blowing up buildings,” the people said. People familiar with the calls described a pattern in which, following conversations with Netanyahu, Trump now consults other administration officials to verify Netanyahu’s claims — a departure from his earlier practice.

The substance beneath the language reflects two leaders whose dominant interests have moved into genuine conflict. Trump’s interest is procedural and identity-centered: credit for a diplomatic outcome and autonomy over its terms. His insistence to The Wall Street Journal that Netanyahu “asks for permission” and his framing of the relationship as one between “the big one” and “the little one” are signals about whose preferences govern the final arrangement. A substantive interest — reopening the Strait of Hormuz — is satisfied by the MOU. A third interest, evident in his reported position that he wanted to solve the problem diplomatically, not solely with force, is avoiding the costs of a ground war. The MOU’s deferral of the nuclear question satisfies the immediate economic need while reflecting a desire for a quick victory.

Netanyahu’s interests are layered and partly in conflict. Preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is publicly central to his political identity. Continued U.S. military cooperation and intelligence sharing is a substantive requirement. Being consulted before major policy shifts — a procedural interest violated by the ceasefire announcement — carries domestic significance. And his identity as Israel’s indispensable security leader is inseparable from electoral survival: polls show him failing to secure a ruling majority in fall elections, and people close to him had hoped Trump would provide relief from his ongoing corruption trial. Trump’s public suggestion to ABC News — “I wonder if Bibi even wants to continue” — forced the Israeli leader to affirm he was still running.

A senior administration official with knowledge of Trump’s calls to Netanyahu, according to a Wall Street Journal report, described a pattern that captures the structural impasse: “Bibi tells the president why he needs to blow something up, and why Israeli intelligence knows how to do it, and when to do it, and the president listens. The calls are usually the same.”

Persuasion Tactics and Their Limits

Nathan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, has assessed that Netanyahu “sees Trump as a guy who can be convinced of anything, including attacking Iran.” The evidence is consistent with this reading. Over the course of 2025, Netanyahu repeatedly visited Trump to urge strikes on Iran. At one point, Trump took him on a private tour of the Lincoln Bedroom. At another, Netanyahu brought a gold pager to the White House — a replica of the pagers that Israelis had used to blow up members of Hezbollah. Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and presidential ally, described the effect in a March interview: “He called me up that night and he said, ‘Man.’ I said, ‘Yeah, ain’t that something?’ He was wowed by that, and I think that gave him a newfound respect for Israel.”

Military cooperation between the two countries reached what officials described as unprecedented levels. Israeli generals sat in U.S. operations rooms. Dozens of U.S. tankers were parked at Israel’s main civilian airport and other sites. Trump cheered with Netanyahu about the precision of early attacks and discussed particular sites in late-night calls. He pulled Netanyahu aside for private conversations. Netanyahu called him Donald, an informality most other world leaders do not embrace.

Yet Trump was rarely convinced of the need to send ground troops. He believed the U.S. could overwhelm the regime with air power, assessing Tehran would have no choice but to dismantle its nuclear program under heavy bombardment. As the war unfolded, Trump grew skeptical of some of Netanyahu’s claims and rejected his plan for a Kurdish invasion of Iran to topple the regime, Israeli officials said. Netanyahu encouraged the bombing of Iranian energy infrastructure, including Kharg Island, a measure opposed by some of Trump’s advisers.

The negotiating dynamic — which Chris Voss’s framework would characterize as persuasion and pressure tactics aimed at changing a counterpart’s frame rather than bargaining within shared interests — has produced dominance signals rather than cooperation. Netanyahu’s “how are you going to verify that?” was, according to people with direct knowledge of the call, a challenge to the deal’s premise rather than an invitation to joint verification design. Trump’s response has been to assert unilateral control: making the deal, briefing Israel after the fact, and publicly diminishing Netanyahu’s agency. Principled-negotiation tools — joint fact-finding, objective criteria, interest-based trades — would require both parties to treat the other’s interests as legitimate constraints on the outcome. The evidence suggests neither is currently operating on those terms.

Objective-criteria candidates exist — the IAEA verification framework, JCPOA precedent, intelligence assessments of breakout timelines, inspection standards — but the parties are not jointly searching for such standards. Trump’s reported position that he wanted to solve the problem diplomatically is a unilateral statement of method, not a proposal to establish shared criteria. The absence of agreed-upon objective criteria means the negotiation over whether the deal is adequate is itself positional and likely to recur through the 60-day window.

Leverage Asymmetries

The U.S.-Israel relationship is asymmetric in both directions simultaneously. Israel depends on the U.S. for military cooperation, diplomatic cover, and operational capacity at a level that makes unilateral action costly. The U.S. depends on Israel for regional intelligence, operational capability, and the domestic political coalition that treats the bilateral relationship as a non-negotiable commitment. Neither dependency is easily substituted.

But the asymmetry favors the U.S. on the question that currently divides them. Trump’s best alternative to a negotiated outcome with Netanyahu is strong: he can proceed with the Iran deal regardless of Israeli objections. He can reduce or restructure the military cooperation — Israeli generals in U.S. operations rooms and U.S. tankers at Ben Gurion Airport are levers, not givens. He can withdraw public support for Netanyahu’s political survival, something people close to Netanyahu had counted on. He can proceed with the 60-day nuclear negotiation treating Israel’s input as advisory rather than binding.

Israel’s best alternative is weaker but not nonexistent: unilateral strikes — Israeli officials had been on standby for them — working through Congressional allies to constrain deal flexibility, publicizing intelligence assessments questioning Iran’s compliance, reframing the negotiation around nuclear capability rather than Hormuz and oil. Each carries risks. Unilateral action could alienate the administration permanently. Congressional pressure could be overridden. Intelligence framing could be dismissed as self-interested. The strongest alternative depends on something Netanyahu cannot control: whether Iran provides evidence of cheating sufficient to shift Trump’s assessment. As a White House official said when asked about the relationship: Trump has a great partnership with Netanyahu and Israel, but “No country or leader pressures President Trump to do anything.”

Trump’s documented actions — committing to the MOU, telling advisers that Netanyahu wants to “bomb everyone,” privately calling him “f—ing crazy” — signal a preference for near-term diplomatic achievement over prolonged military costs. When Trump told Netanyahu “he would be in prison without his support,” he invoked a commitment that, if withdrawn, would leave Netanyahu more exposed domestically. Netanyahu’s habit of “striking targets first” and then seeking approval, as administration officials described it, erodes the trust needed for joint decision-making.

Yet Trump’s own behavior signals that the alliance carries substantial weight in his calculations. He described the relationship as “symbiotic.” He accepted the gold pager gift and was, by Graham’s account, “wowed.” He authorized unprecedented military cooperation. He grew angry at Netanyahu for congratulating Joe Biden in 2020 but picked the relationship back up upon returning to office. This pattern — alternating frustration and investment — means Trump cannot convincingly threaten to abandon Israel, while Netanyahu cannot convince Trump to abandon a deal that promises a significant diplomatic win.

The 60-Day Window

The 60-day deferral transforms the situation from open-ended maneuvering into a finite game. Two axes generate the most consequential variation: the state of U.S.-Israel coordination and Iran’s strategic posture during the deferral period.

In a scenario where both Washington and Jerusalem coordinate and Iran engages genuinely, Trump gets a broader deal including nuclear constraints, Hormuz remains open, and Netanyahu can claim some credit for shaping verification terms. This requires both sides to subordinate current friction to a shared framework — something current evidence does not support.

If the two governments maintain divergent tracks and Iran engages — the current trajectory — Trump proceeds with diplomacy while Netanyahu continues pressing for military action. If Iran genuinely negotiates, the deal advances without Israeli input and the rift solidifies into a long-term reordering of the relationship. Netanyahu loses influence over the outcome but gains nothing for having resisted it.

If Iran defects — exploiting the U.S.-Israel split to advance its program — the absence of a credible military threat, because the U.S. has moved to diplomacy and Israel’s capacity without U.S. operational support is more limited, removes the leverage that was supposed to make diplomacy work. The deal collapses, but so does the military option’s international legitimacy. This is the most dangerous scenario.

A wild card outside these paths: major escalation by Iranian-backed proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in the Red Sea, militias in Iraq — during the 60-day window. Israel’s continued bombing in Lebanon despite a ceasefire is relevant context for assessing this possibility.

Netanyahu’s leverage is greatest now, before the deal consolidates; Trump’s leverage grows if the deal begins to deliver visible benefits. Netanyahu’s fall election creates a deadline that compresses his decision space. Trump faces no comparable deadline on Iran. The mismatch in time horizons favors Trump in the current round but does not eliminate Netanyahu’s capacity for disruptive moves.

Structural Consequences

In the near term, the MOU proceeds, Hormuz reopens, oil markets stabilize, and Israeli officials who had been on standby for strikes are recalibrating. In the months ahead, the 60-day nuclear negotiation window will test whether Iran engages genuinely. If it does, the rift may narrow as deal terms become concrete enough for Netanyahu to evaluate on their merits. If Iran defects, the rift becomes a strategic liability.

In the medium term — one to two years — the relationship’s structure may be permanently altered. The evidence suggests Trump has moved from consulting Netanyahu to informing him, and from accepting his military prescriptions to questioning them. Whether this shift is tactical — driven by the deal’s requirements — or structural — driven by a reassessment of Netanyahu’s reliability as an adviser — will determine whether the partnership can be rebuilt on new terms. The absence of a commitment device that binds either leader to a specific course of action — Trump cannot convincingly threaten to abandon Israel; Netanyahu cannot convince Trump to abandon the deal — points toward a drift toward managed tension rather than resolution of the underlying strategic disagreement.

Analytical techniques used in this piece

This analysis applies the methods below. Each links to a short, plain-English explainer you can read and reuse.

Principled Negotiation: Works a negotiation from interests, options, and objective criteria rather than positions.
Scenario Planning: Builds a small set of distinct, plausible futures to plan against.
Strategic Interaction (Game Theory): Models a situation as a game — players, moves, payoffs, and likely equilibria.
Creative Destruction: Innovation that grows the economy by dismantling the incumbents it displaces (Schumpeter).
Mutually Assured Destruction: Deterrence by guaranteeing that any attack is suicidal for the attacker.