President Donald Trump walks the red carpet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Monday, May 22, 2017, during welcoming ceremonies at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Gareth Porter, writing at The American Conservative, explains the depths of Israeli influence in the Trump administration, and how that influence almost embroiled America in Israel’s anti-Iran campaign. He writes (abridged):
The Pentagon was not the only party pressing Donald Trump to keep troops in Syria last year.
It turns out the Israeli government and its supporters in Washington were working very hard to get the Trump administration to use America’s military presence there to support an Israeli campaign of airstrikes aimed at threatening war with Iran.
The Israeli strategy was aimed at dividing Russia from Iran and thus putting pressure on Tehran to withdraw its military personnel from Syria. A campaign by a pro-Israel think tank actually succeeded in getting such a policy ready for Trump’s approval last fall—although it was not supported by some Pentagon officials.
The story of the Israel lobby’s latest attempt to capture American policy, recounted here for the first time, reveals just how far Israel was able to reach into the Trump administration before the president personally intervened.
Read more here.
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