Trump vs. Netanyahu? Admiral Stavridis Explains the Growing Rift

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**Michael Smerconish** (1:00)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:05)
Hey gang, my next guest is the co-author of your Summer Beach Read. It is a novel, it's futuristic, it's awesome.
It's called 2084, the end of a trilogy. Three books, you don't have to read all of them. I recommend that you do. You can pick up with number three and go back to 2034 and 2054 But the book is 2084 and he happens to be a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. This is Admiral James Stavridis. Admiral, just moments ago I saw a headline at CNN. I'll read it aloud. Israel launches new strikes on Lebanon. Both the US and Tehran have warned Israel against continuing its offensive in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Trump says he's still confident of a US-Iran deal. What's going on?

**James Stavridis** (1:57)
I just appeared on CNN, and the CNN reporters have been keeping track. And President Trump, in the last three months, has said 37 times, I'll say that number again, 37 times, that a deal is just a day or two away. So I think, like everybody else, I'm getting skeptical. However, I'm very hopeful that, in fact, we are close to the end here.
Having said that, Michael, as you just indicated, a big problem is going to be Israel's desire to keep pounding away at Hezbollah to the north. And Iran, conversely, is trying to protect Hezbollah, one of their creatures, one of their proxies. And so that's the tension in the argument right now. And President Trump is kind of trying to balance, if you will, between Benjamin Netanyahu and his government elections coming there in Israel and the Ayatollah over in Tehran. I don't envy him that task.

**Michael Smerconish** (3:04)
Here's a related but different headline. It's from the Associated Press. Netanyahu and Trump are at odds over the war they started together. The lead says Israel's latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that US. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war, lockstep.
They want different things. Do you agree that they want different things? And what are they?

**James Stavridis** (3:28)
I do agree. And I want to start with the third actor in this drama, and that's Tehran. What do they want? Above all, they want to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel. What they call Satan, that would be us, and little Satan, that would be Israel. So Tehran is loving every minute of this. What the US wants, quite obviously, is to open the Strait of Hormuz, get gas prices down, and get US forces out of the region. President Trump's getting a very clear signal from both his own party and the larger electorate. That's where the country wants to go.
The objective over in Jerusalem, is different. They want to continue to hammer away at Iran, and in particular, tactically, in their neighborhood. They see this as the opportunity to thoroughly degrade Hezbollah, if not exorcise them completely from the body of Lebanon, the state to the north of Israel. So, two very different objectives, and President Trump is trying to hold this increasing coalition of the unwilling together.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:44)
Admiral Stavridis, I need a scorecard to follow all this. So, I literally, I made myself notes. Let's do Lebanon for dummies, and I'm the dummy in chief, and you tell me if I have it right. The US and Israel strike Iran on February 28 Hezbollah joins the fight. Hezbollah, the Lebanese army, backed by Iran. And then more recently on Sunday, Hezbollah launched new strikes.
Israel responded in the Beirut suburbs. Beirut is the Lebanese capital.