Donald Trump's latest climbdown suggests he may want to end the war with Iran, but Israel is not so sure. The US President posted on social media that he was suspending military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure, but the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it was conducting strikes on Iranian targets in Tehran.
Israeli raids are co-ordinated with the Americans, who continue to refuel Israeli fighter jets. But Trump also claimed that America was in talks with Iran about the 'complete and total resolution of our hostilities'. Iran has firmly denied the existence of such talks in public and rejected offers from America in private.
Meanwhile, an American marine expeditionary unit is still on its way to the Gulf and may yet be unleashed on Iranian positions overlooking the Strait of Hormuz or on Kharg Island, Iran's main energy hub. Israelis hope that, by delaying strikes on Iran's power plants, Trump is merely playing for time to calm the energy markets.
But Trump's climbdown could also signal a divergence in American and Israeli war aims. Israel sees this war as a crucial step towards neutralising Iran's military threat, its nuclear-and ballistic-missile programmes and support for proxies in the region, an objective it believes can only be achieved through regime change.
Trump has at times appeared to share these aims. But recently he has appeared more concerned with ensuring that oil flows out of the Gulf. He has twice criticised Israel during the war, both times after Israeli jets bombed targets related to Iran's energy industry.
Trump's focus seems increasingly to be on averting a global energy crisis for which he would be blamed, including by trying to make a deal with whatever remains of Iran's regime. Israel thus faces the prospect that the war will end without the attainment of the main objective stated by Binyamin Netanyahu, its prime minister: to prepare the ground for a popular uprising that would topple the Iranian regime.
The war's unexpectedly long duration, as well as Trump's latest climbdown, undermine the idea that Iran's regime is fragile and that regime change is possible. Instead, it is looking more likely that the ill-judged campaign will either drag on or end messily, with an Iran that is battered but defiant, and still able to inflict considerable damage on the region and the world.
