Why Netanyahu, unlike Trump, needs Iran to fall

The claim that Israel "dragged" the US into war with Iran has always been nonsense, says Gerard Baker in The Times. Donald Trump has wanted to bomb Iran for "most of his adult life", so the conspiratorial idea that he was somehow tricked into it by Benjamin Netanyahu and his "cabal of clever Jews" in Washington is for the birds. But if the conflict ends badly for the US, the search will be on for a scapegoat. And for many Republicans, that scapegoat will be Israel. When MAGA provocateur Joe Kent quit as Trump's counter-terrorism chief this week, he blamed America's involvement in the war on Jerusalem "and its powerful American lobby". Tucker Carlson and other MAGA loyalists have said much the same. Trump himself criticised Israel for attacking the South Pars gas field on Wednesday, claiming – "despite evidence to the contrary" – he hadn't been forewarned.

All of which means the stakes for the Israelis in this conflict go far beyond their immediate security. Support for Israel in the US has collapsed in recent years, largely because of its bloody assault on Hamas in Gaza. Recent polls suggest that Americans are now evenly divided between Israel and the Palestinians; a decade or so ago, they favoured the Jewish state by more than three to one. That is one of the reasons why Netanyahu, unlike Trump, is so set on toppling the regime in Tehran. Do that, and defuse the threat the Islamic Republic and its terrorist proxies have posed to the West for 50 years, and Americans will thank the Israelis. But if they fail – leaving the mullahs in power, energy prices elevated and the Middle East as unstable as ever – it could do "untold damage" to their most important alliance in an increasingly hostile world.

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Heroes and villains

Princess Anne in 1969 (L) and this week. Getty

Hero
Princess Anne, for taking thriftiness to new levels by appearing at Wednesday's state banquet for the Nigerian president in a white coat she first wore 57 years ago, when she was 18. It's impressive not only that she held on to the garment for so long, unaltered but for a new collar, says The Daily Telegraph, but also that at 75 "she can still fit into an item created when she was a teenager".

Villain
Donald Trump, whose joint attack with Israel on Iran could imperil the English cricket season. Dukes, which supplies all the red balls for top-level games in England and Wales, is considering rationing its provision for each team because of supply-chain issues stemming from the Middle East conflict.

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