Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is racing to spark a war with Iran and pull the United States into it before he loses power, according to a former Israeli leader and geopolitical expert Trita Parsi.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote in Haaretz that Netanyahu, a close ally of President Donald Trump, plans to “carry out a blatant military provocation in order to force Iran to respond on a scale triggering a war that would disrupt or prevent the establishment of a new government.”
“For months I have warned publicly that the prime minister is behaving like a wounded animal and that he will not hesitate to disrupt the election, refuse to recognize their results or even launch a war of deception in order to ensure his political survival,” Barak wrote.
Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc fell short of a majority in Israel’s Oct. 27 election. Israeli President Isaac Herzog tasked opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot with forming a government Nov. 7, giving him 28 days with a possible 14-day extension.
Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Saturday that Netanyahu may have no more than three to four weeks to achieve his “lifelong dream” of getting the U.S. to bomb Iran, something he’s pressed for since at least the 1990s.
“He has never been closer to this goal, but time is running out,” Parsi wrote.
Parsi said former and current Israeli officials, from Avigdor Lieberman to Barak, are sounding the same alarm. He wrote that Netanyahu tried to provoke Iran by violating its airspace the weekend before the election. That same weekend, according to Barak, “a covert operation in Iran that could have ignited a war was thwarted at the last minute.”
Netanyahu has been calling Trump “every day” to urge him to resume the war, a person briefed on the discussions recently told the Financial Times. War skeptics inside the White House have been scrambling to push back.
Trump hasn’t ruled out war but is hesitating, Parsi wrote. Instead, he has opted to keep an economic blockade on Iran in place for a few more weeks.
“But a few more weeks is exactly what Netanyahu does not have,” Parsi wrote.