US President Donald Trump has issued a typically strongly worded statement in the wake of attacks on a major gas field shared by Iran and Qatar on Wednesday.
Israel hit Iran's South Pars - part of the world's largest natural gas field – and Tehran retaliated by striking an energy complex in Qatar. The attacks led to a spike in energy prices, fueling Trump's wrath.
On his Truth Social media platform, Trump threatened Iran again and said he didn't know about Israel's plans for the attack. So what does the language used by the US president tell us about the course of the war and the extent to which the US and Israel are aligned on its strategy and goals?
The US 'knew nothing' about the attack
The president says the US knew nothing about this particular attack. This flies in the face of multiple newspaper reports in Israel in the aftermath of the attack. The attack was co-ordinated in advance with the United States and… agreed upon between Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and US President Trump, the centrist paper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
Right-wing paper Israel Hayom goes further, stating President Trump discussed the upcoming Israeli strike in [Iran's coastal city of] Asaluyeh with leaders of three Persian Gulf states over the weekend. As is often the case with the president's assertions, it is not easy to know where the truth lies.
His choice of words to describe the Israeli attack is also telling. Out of anger, he says, Israel violently lashed out against the gas field. This is the type of language used to describe some of Iran's wilder retaliations - not a carefully considered military operation by a close ally. Is Trump suggesting that Israel acted unwisely?
Israel will make 'no more attacks' on gas field
The president's use of capitals is notorious, but in this lengthy post, he resorts to all caps just once. NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field, he writes, unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case Qatar. For a president who needs to feel he's in control, was this a reflection of an undertaking already given, or a shot across Benjamin Netanyahu's bows?
As is often the case with Trump's stream-of-consciousness Truth Social posts, it's not easy to tell. But it carries echoes of reports that Trump was angered by Israel's attacks on Iranian oil depots earlier in the war. So are Israel and American war aims diverging?
While it would probably be a mistake to read too much into a single late-night post from President Trump, Israeli officials are keen to emphasize that the two countries are in lockstep, even if they occasionally, inadvertently, hint at gaps. We are very much aligned on most or all of our goals regarding the Islamic regime in Iran, the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], their ballistic and nuclear programmes, Alex Gandler, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London, told the BBC on Thursday morning.
But while the two allies clearly agree on much, Israel has been much more consistent about its desire to see regime change in Iran. Officials quoted in the Israeli media have painted the South Pars attack as part of an ongoing effort to undermine the regime's authority.
Trump's Threat to 'massively blow up' Iran's gas field
Parts of Trump’s Truth Social post are classic Trump - threats to use unprecedented levels of violence to get his way. If Iran attacks Qatar's LNG facilities again, he warns, the US with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before. Trump frequently deploys this kind of rhetoric.
There is also a jarring reference to Israeli consent for threatened action. Was this a rebuke to Benjamin Netanyahu to consult more closely in the future?
Support for the war is much higher in Israel than in the US, and the conflict could help secure another term as prime minister for Netanyahu while costing Trump's Republican Party in the upcoming midterm elections. Israel and the US are close military allies, but this is the first time they have fought a war together, and it is proving more complicated than Trump thought.
