It has been a few days since President Donald Trump signed a “deal” at the Palace of Versailles to end the war with Iran, but the intelligence community is now warning him that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely undermine any agreement the U.S. makes.
According to diplomacy and national security reporter John Hudson at The Washington Post, “the Israeli leader faces intense political pressure to continue waging war in Lebanon.”
One intelligence report that circulated over the week said that Netanyahu’s political desperation was growing as his elections quickly approach.
“Netanyahu’s political survival is linked to showing his domestic audience that he will not withdraw troops from Lebanon and that he is intent on escalating,” said Hudson in a thread on X.
Lebanon is where the extremist anti-Israeli group Hezbollah is headquartered. Iran, which has funded terrorism by Hezbollah, has made Lebanon part of the deal with the United States. As of Friday afternoon, Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Speaking about it in France on Wednesday, Trump called it a “little dispute over Lebanon.”
The intelligence report described frustration from Israeli officials with Trump’s Iran deal. They object to the terms that they believe “undermine its broader objective of maintaining maximum pressure on Tehran.”
“Trump administration officials insist that the terms do not prevent Israel from retaliating against Hezbollah if fired upon and that Netanyahu’s concerns pale in comparison to the need to complete a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to stave off a global economic crisis,” Hudson also wrote in his X thread.
In an interview with Axios on Thursday, Trump claimed that Iran agreed to an “unconditional surrender,” which isn’t consistent with the 14-point agreement that he released this week.
Meanwhile, Israel began Friday by launching more air strikes in southern Lebanon after a Hezbollah drone strike killed four Israeli soldiers, the Post report said.
Iran and the U.S. were set to meet in Switzerland on Friday, where Vice President JD Vance would officially sign an agreement. At the last minute, the trip was off and the signing postponed. The president hasn’t given any reason for what may have happened in the past 48 hours.