"He promised no more forever wars and these kind of stupid wars," Giridharadas said. "He promised safety, like just basic safety. He promised crackdown on refugees and the border issue, and he promised costs would come down. By doing this war – I wouldn't even call this a war of choice, it's like a war of whim and maybe a war of like, following your friend off a cliff.
"He is, on all four of those issues, betraying not me and you or anybody else, but his core base. Those four promises, 'No more stupid wars, I'll deal with costs because, you know, refugees and safety, because Iran is a terror state.'"
Trump has said the war was necessary to destroy Iran's missile capabilities, its navy and its nuclear program, in addition to ensuring the regime can no longer arm or support terrorism in other countries. But Giridharadas argued that Israel's goals were completely different in this joint military operation.
"It may not be able to win on this battlefield that we're seeing on our screen, but for the next 20 years to come, we're going to all have to live with the threat of terrorism that has been re-ignited by this kind of treatment," he said. "There are going to be refugee flows when all of this, you know, the Israelis apparently want state collapse. That's one of their goals, I read in the New York Times this morning. Well, that state collapse is going to mean refugees on a giant scale. It's one of the more populous countries in the world."
Giridharadas said the dynamic begs the question of why Trump has taken a back seat to Netanyahu.
"Costs are going through the roof, and I think it's really worth asking as Americans: Donald Trump has demoted himself to being sort of Bibi's VP, right?" he said.
"Like, it's a very strange. We fund Israel's weapons, like, Israel is economically and militarily viable because of American support. So Donald Trump talks a lot about leverage and as you know, is obsessed with the notion of, 'If I'm giving you something, I want to be able to dictate terms,' and his whole policy is now on every personal and and economic elsewhere is about that.
"But in this relationship, he seems to be willing to follow his friend off a cliff," he added, "and very interesting, David Sanger reporting in the Times today about the Israelis having goals that are totally different from American goals, and yet the Americans are just, you know, along for the ride. So I'm curious why someone who is so sensitive to his own humiliation is willing to be Bibi's VP."
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