President Donald Trump “offered to help facilitate a negotiation that would have prevented” Israel’s strikes on Iran and “in a very calculated way, uses the collective ‘we’ to align the United States with Israel,” Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, told Newsmax Wednesday.
“I think Iran was used to the idea that America would always stand in the way of Israel attacking Iran. And what you saw is President Trump basically said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to get out of the way,'” Davidson, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on “Newsline.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “been wanting to hit Iran hard. And so, Netanyahu did, in fact, do that. … President Trump, in a very calculated way, uses the collective ‘we’ to align the United States with Israel. But even the Ayatollah’s statement makes clear he understands that America isn’t directly attacking Iran. And I think he’s very wisely choosing not to directly attack the United States,” he added.
Regarding Trump’s scheduled lunch with Pakistani armed forces chief Asim Munir Wednesday and whether Iran would go to Pakistan for assistance, Davidson said, “Trump put on maximum pressure in his first administration and really crippled Iran’s economy and weakened their government, and I think he thought that this would be enough of a reality to convince Iran’s government to negotiate and to give up their nuclear weapons.”
“Officially, the Ayatollah has said that they don’t want a nuclear weapons program. They gave them up in 2003, but they’ve increasingly enriched [uranium] at higher grades. They’re enriching not just at higher levels than normal use for pharmaceuticals,” he added.
“They’re approaching weapons-grade enrichment. And I think that’s the alarm bell that caused Netanyahu to feel like he needed to take action. President Trump’s making clear, ‘Hey, we first were talking about nuclear weapons. Now we’re talking about the whole regime. At some level, no one trusts you people. So why would we continue to tolerate your government staying in power?'” Davidson said.
“That’s been Israel’s position for a long time because when Iran has had money since they’ve had the Ayatollah, they’ve used it to attack Israel. So you understand why Israel, it’s not just Iran attacking Israel directly, they’re funding attacks like Hamas’ massacre on [Oct. 7].”
He added, “So Iran has been the destabilizing force. And now President Trump is kind of escalating the language to say, ‘Look, just give up the nuclear weapons. Now you’re at risk of losing your whole country.'”
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