President Donald Trump unleashed a four-letter-word tirade on Tuesday morning after reports surfaced that Israel had violated the ceasefire agreement brokered just 24 hours earlier. The episode also exposed that Trump is terrified of looking like another F word when it comes to the Iran-Israel conflict, according to Sky News correspondent James Mathews.
"Failure – it's the F word Donald Trump fears most," Matthews wrote in a column published on Tuesday.
Trump relishes his branding as "Negotiator in Chief," but the conflict between Iran and Israel appears to be testing the bounds of his influence on the geopolitical stage. This is happening as Trump traveled to The Hague to attempt to convince NATO allies to increase their defense spending budgets to 5% of their GDP.
Trump inserted himself squarely in the middle of the Iran-Israel conflict when his administration decided to bomb three of Iran's nuclear facilities on Saturday night. He claimed the operation "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capabilities, although that assessment has been met with doubt from experts.
On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire, marking "an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR."
When Trump awoke on Tuesday and learned that Israel had dropped a new cache of bombs on Iran, the event "leant into doubts around Trump's influence over Israeli actions," Mathews argued.
"If this process is heading towards nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran, Trump doesn't need questions surrounding his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Matthews continued. "Tehran needs to believe Trump can tighten the leash."