The Big Story 

President Trump’s strategy of playing both sides is coming into question as he fumed over Israel and Iran’s continued fighting while demanding peace in the region.

© Associated Press

The president was so frustrated Tuesday morning he dropped an expletive on the White House lawn on his way to the NATO summit, contending that the two adversaries “don’t know what the f— they’re doing.”

He also offered a window into his handling of the situation in which he stressed criticism mostly for Israel but also for Iran in his quest to end the fighting: “All I do is play both sides.”

Whether Trump’s strategy to have a foot in each camp will be successful depends on whether Israel and Iran will abide by his desire to stop fighting in the long term, but some foreign policy experts think it will take more disciplined diplomacy to reach a peaceful end.

Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Iran during Trump’s first term, argued that if the administration took a more subdued approach and called on Israel to de-escalate instead of retaliate when Iran continued strikes, Trump would have likely not gone on his “tirade” on Tuesday.

“With the announcement of the ceasefire and the Iranians cheating, the Israelis were going to respond. They did respond. And I think that had he or Rubio called Netanyahu and said, ‘We don’t want to lose the ceasefire. So how do you plan to respond? And, don’t blow up Tehran, do something moderate.’ That would have worked,” Abrams said. “There was no need for a public and private tirade.”

Trump allies have argued that the president’s flexibility and willingness to pivot on a dime is an asset, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. Where critics see Trump as having few strongly held beliefs and a lack of commitment to long-standing allies, the president’s supporters see him as able to shift his tone and approach to get whatever result he desires.

One Trump ally noted that the Iran-Israel conflict was far from the first time the president has deployed an “all sides” approach. They argued Trump has used it at times when addressing the war in Ukraine, alternately attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and bellowing that he is unhappy with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he attempts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.

A version of that was also on full display Tuesday as Trump posted a cascade of Truth Social posts as he was flying to the Netherlands for the NATO summit this week. While he left the White House just after sunrise in a huff, his Truth Social posts soon began suggesting that the ceasefire was holding and that he was telling Israel to turn their planes around.

By late Tuesday, the ceasefire appeared to have been held by both Israel and Iran, with few, if any, reports of Tehran striking Israel after Trump’s earlier remarks. Trump said there wouldn’t be consequences for the fighting that occurred overnight when the ceasefire was supposed to begin initially.

Read the full report at TheHill.com.

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