Israel is not Afghanistan. Nor is it Ukraine. That is where one must begin in order to understand the current phase in the Middle East and Donald Trump’s apparent attempt to defuse — or at least freeze — the conflict while leaving Netanyahu with responsibility for the escalation.

The American temptation is clear: to claim diplomatic leadership, impose a truce, negotiate with Iran, and present himself as the man who ends wars. But in the Middle East, this logic runs into a structural limit. Israel is not a peripheral theater from which Washington can politically withdraw after shifting its attention elsewhere. It is an organic part of America’s strategic architecture: military, technological, congressional, intelligence-based, and tied to regional deterrence. The ten-year memorandum signed by the United States provides for $38 billion in military assistance to Israel for the 2019–2028 period, equivalent to $3.8 billion a year, including funds for missile defense.

The difference with Kabul and Kyiv is substantial. In Afghanistan, the United States could withdraw troops and flag, accepting the reputational cost of collapse. In Ukraine, it can modulate aid, shift part of the burden onto the Europeans, and turn the conflict into a problem of transatlantic sustainability. Not with Israel. If Israel is perceived as having been left alone, the entire American deterrence system in the Levant, the Gulf, and against the Iranian axis is weakened. And if Israel acts without Washington, Washington still pays the price: in energy markets, in the security of maritime routes, in the protection of its bases, in relations with Arab allies, and in American domestic politics.

That is why the most important phrase of these weeks is not only the one attributed to Trump against Netanyahu, but the context in which it was uttered. Trump confirmed that he had harshly criticized the Israeli prime minister in a phone call about Lebanon; Axios had reported that he called him “crazy” and accused him of ingratitude, in an attempt to halt a broader Israeli attack on Beirut. A few days earlier, Trump himself had said that Netanyahu would do “whatever” he wanted on Iran, a phrase later amplified by several American media outlets. The public message was evident: the American president wanted to re-establish the hierarchy, to show that the Israeli ally could not hijack American strategy.

But this is precisely where the most delicate part emerges. Shortly afterward, reports surfaced that the Pentagon had raised to the “critical” level its assessment of the threat of Israeli intelligence activity against American officials. According to reports cited by the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post, possible targets included Steve Witkoff, Elbridge Colby, and Michael DiMino, figures involved in the American line on Iran and regional negotiations; the White House and the Israeli embassy, however, strongly denied the claims, calling the accusations false.

Here the analysis must stop one step short of a theory of blackmail. There is no public evidence that Netanyahu is using compromising information on Trump or his entourage. But in international politics, the sequence of signals also matters. First, Trump communicates that he humiliated Netanyahu and can command him; then reports emerge that Israel allegedly sought sensitive information on senior American officials and negotiators. Even assuming that the leaks are merely the product of internal tensions in Washington, the political effect is clear: Netanyahu does not appear to be a simple executor. He appears as a leader who, despite depending on the United States, retains autonomous levers and can make any American attempt to treat him as a vassal costly.

The second underestimated point concerns Lebanon. The superficial reading is this: Israel bombs Lebanon, Hezbollah responds, Iran enters the scene, Trump seeks a truce. But there is a deeper level. Israel is not striking “Lebanon” in the abstract: it is trying to militarily hollow out Hezbollah’s area of maneuver in the south, precisely that portion of territory that the Lebanese state has for years failed to control fully. The negotiating formula that emerged in talks mediated by the United States refers to “pilot zones” in which the Lebanese Armed Forces would assume exclusive control, excluding non-state actors.

This point is crucial. Since 2006, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 has called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, the deployment of the Lebanese army alongside UNIFIL, and the creation of an area between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of unauthorized armed personnel. In political terms, it means only one thing: the monopoly on the use of force should return to the Lebanese state. Hezbollah, instead, has built over time a parallel sovereignty: party, militia, social infrastructure, and regional arm of Iran. Every meter that the regular Lebanese army manages to hold in the south is a meter taken away from this ambiguity.

The third node is Iran. Tehran has understood perfectly well that Lebanon, Gaza, Hormuz, and the nuclear negotiations are now part of a single table. After the Israeli strikes in the Beirut area, Iran launched missiles against Israel for the first time since the April truce, later declaring the first wave over but threatening further action if Israel continues to strike Lebanon. Trump asked Israel and Iran to immediately stop “shooting” and claimed that both sides were seeking an immediate ceasefire, while final negotiations for peace remained ongoing.

But the reality is that Trump cannot simply say “stop.” If Netanyahu believes that an agreement with Iran leaves Hezbollah’s, Hamas’s, and the Houthis’ infrastructure intact, he will continue to sabotage its military premises. If Iran believes that Washington is unable to restrain Israel, it will use Lebanon as a testing ground for American credibility. And if Lebanon cannot turn the “pilot zones” into real sovereignty for the regular army, the south will remain the permanent detonator of the next war.

The paradox, then, is this: Trump would like to exit the conflict while claiming peace, but in order to exit it, he must remain inside it. He must negotiate with Iran without appearing hostage to Tehran, strengthen the Lebanese army, and manage Gaza without allowing the humanitarian crisis to devour every remaining shred of Western legitimacy.

That is why Israel cannot be left “holding the match.” Not because Washington approves every move by Netanyahu, but because if the match falls, it also sets the American hand on fire. The real game is not whether Trump commands Netanyahu or whether Netanyahu defies Trump. The real game is whether the United States will be able to turn Israeli military pressure into a sustainable political arrangement: the Lebanese army in the south, Hezbollah away from the border, Gaza outside Hamas’s armed control, and Iran inside a verifiable agreement. If this does not happen, the Middle East will remain exactly what it is today: not a conflict to be closed, but a chain of fronts in which every truce is only the temporary way in which war catches its breath.