Trump’s “America First” vs. Neocons’ “Israel First”: It’s Showdown Time

By Kevin Barrett, for American Free Press

For decades the US hasn’t had enough enemies. So it has been borrowing them from Israel, which has all it can handle and then some, due to its terrorism, assassinations, expansionist ambitions, and genocidal policies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has devoted his entire political career to cajoling the US into fighting Israel’s wars. Since the 1980s US Mideast policies have been primarily designed to benefit Israel, including America’s eight-trillion-dollar 9/11 wars. Absent Israel, the US could easily have maintained cordial relations with every country in the region, including Israel’s long-term nemesis, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Netanyahu tricked the US into overthrowing the governments of Iraq, Sudan, Libya, and most recently Syria. He convinced American leaders to bankrupt their country attempting to destroy “seven countries in five years”—the real 9/11 agenda according to whistleblower Gen. Wesley Clark. And though the “seven countries” project has taken much longer than five years, Netanyahu is still working on what would be his crowning achievement: dragging the US into a ruinous war on Iran.

During President Donald Trump’s first term, Netanyahu conned the Trump Administration into murdering Iran’s greatest military hero, Gen. Qasem Soleimani­­—then reneged at the last minute on his promise to participate. As Trump explained in October 2023:

“Israel was going to do this with us, and it was being planned and working on it for months. We had everything all set to go, and the night before it happened, I got a call that Israel will not be participating in this attack…They didn’t tell us why. I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. We were disappointed by that. Very disappointed.”

By killing Soleimani, Trump and his advisors made themselves legitimate targets of Iranian retaliation. To this day, Trump is “very afraid and troubled” by the possibility that Iran might retaliate against him, to the extent that he still flies in decoy planes rather than Trump Force One and feels the need to threaten Iran with “obliteration” if anything should happen to him. (Netanyahu, who would love to see Iran obliterated, now has every reason to arrange a false-flag Trump assassination designed to be blamed on Iran.)

Will Netanyahu succeed in fomenting a cataclysmic US-Iran war? The answer depends on what kind of advice Trump gets. The president’s cabinet is stocked with Israel-first swamp creatures like Marco Rubio, who recently traveled to Israel to listen to Netanyahu’s pitch for a US-vs.-Iran war. (If Trump listens to the likes of Rubio, he will be repeating the mistake he made in 2020 when he let Mike Pompeo among others convince him to murder Soleimani.) Another dangerous advisor is Pete Hegseth, an unhinged “Christian” Zionist who babbles about building a blood sacrifice temple in Occupied Jerusalem, an apocalyptic project that would likely entail nuclear World War Three.

But Trump’s cabinet also includes voices of relative sanity including Vice President J.D. Vance, Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and Undersecretary of Defense nominee Elbridge Colby, who “is currently the target of a neoconservative-led campaign to scuttle his nomination.” Colby advocates ending the Mideast wars-for-Israel and focusing on more important and productive matters, including containing China. Neocon Senator Tom Cotton is trying to derail Colby’s nomination. Cotton says Colby isn’t hostile enough to Israel’s main enemy, Iran. J.D. Vance and Elon Musk are defending Colby.

Netanyahu wants to convince Trump that Israel has significantly weakened the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance” that brings together Iraqis, Yemenis, Lebanese, Syrians, and other West Asians dedicated to ending Israel’s genocidal occupation of Palestine. “Let’s finish them off,” Netanyahu proposes. But despite a few high profile assassinations, and much death and destruction, the anti-Israel resistance is far stronger now than it was before October 7, 2023. Thanks to Israel’s genocide of Gaza, the Resistance now enjoys the fervent support of almost all the people of the region. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s February 23 funeral brought 1.5 million people into the streets of Beirut, while hundreds of millions more around the world watched on television and were moved, amazed, and inspired by the heroism of the anti-genocide martyrs.

If confirmed, Elbridge Colby will no doubt remind Trump that Iran can easily and instantaneously kill thousands of American soldiers and sailors, obliterate regional oil production, close the Persian Gulf, and trigger the worst economic meltdown in human history. A US war on Iran for Israel would be madness.

When America was the world’s sole superpower, it could afford to import enemies from Israel, even at a terrible price. Today’s multipolar world offers no such luxury. America now has peer competitors. It needs all the friends it can get. Making unnecessary enemies and fighting unnecessary wars for Israel is no longer an option.

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