The road to war How Netanyahu sold Trump the flimsy promise of an easy win

When Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at Donald Trump's Mara-Lago club on 29 December last year, the Israeli prime minister came with an appeal - and a not so subtle inducement.

- Peter Beaumont Senior international correspondent

After months of restocking air defence and other missiles after June’s 12-day conflict in which the US joined in to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Israel was ready to go again, this time with more substantial objectives. In the press conference hosted by the two leaders, Trump appeared dutifully to echo familiar talking points of Netanyahu’s. “Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again” Trump said. “Then we are going to have to knock them down. We'll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully, that’s not happening”

The Israeli leader, like others before him, had come armed with an appeal to Trump’s ego: the award of his country’s top honour, the Israel prize, rarely given to non-Israelis, for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people”.

According to the Atlantic, Netanyahu had suggested a final benefit to the famously transactional president: defeating Iran would allow Israel to wean itself off its massive reliance on US military aid.

‘That meeting was one of many contacts between Netanyahu and Trump in the weeks that followed as the former sought to lock in US participation for a comprehensive conflict against Tehran with far grander ambitions than the previous round of fighting.

A fragile and unpopular regime was ripe for toppling, shaken by internal protests - with Iranians furious at the lethal repression of those demonstrations, according to an assessment prepared by the Mossad, Israel’s secret service. It would be a historic opportunity requiring a short campaign.

‘An extra benefit dangled by the Israeli leader, according to some accounts, would be that Trump could take revenge for alleged Iranian plots against his life. What is clear from what has subsequently emerged is that Netanyahu - a self-styled “expert” on Iran - and the Israeli military were fully invested in their pitch of an easy war.