The side of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have, if it had been in their power, already involved the Americans in the war, sending American Air Force bombers - equipped with piercing super bombs that only the Americans have - against Iran's underground nuclear facilities in Fordow.

One of the declared goals of the Israeli operation Rising Lion is, after all, the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program, which, however, cannot be achieved to the extent that the Israeli leadership would like without the tangible assistance of the United States.

Therefore, if the Israelis had the final say, the United States would have already entered the war… by bombing Fordow.

However, US President Donald Trump yesterday gave himself a deadline of two weeks to decide whether to proceed with such a direct American strike against Iran or not.

Netanyahu and the neoconservative hawks of the Republican Party are calling on Trump to strike immediately. Neoconservative Eliot Cohen wrote a fiery article in the American magazine Atlantic in favor of American involvement, highlighting the Iranian threat to Israel, which he describes as existential. The isolationist MAGA (make America great again) wing of the Republican party, however, on the other hand – as expressed by Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and others – calls on Trump to remain neutral, recalling the statements he himself had made in the past in favor of the need for the US to disengage from the endless wars in the Middle East. As for external observers, they recall the US war adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan which, instead of ending quickly and painlessly, lasted for years.

It is worth noting, however, that in the case of Donald Trump, the term"two weeks" should probably not be taken literally. In essence, it simply means"later," without prejudging any final American move.

Dangerous waiting

In practice, the American president is now seen as buying time, while the Iranian-Israeli exchange of fire continues with unabated intensity, causing losses and damage on both sides.

The time Donald Trump is buying allows him to move even more military forces to the wider Middle East. Of the American aircraft carriers, the USS Carl Vinson is already there, the USS Nimitz is heading there, and the USS Gerald R. Ford is preparing to set sail for nearby (Europe). Any American forces could either attack Iran directly with even greater intensity or repel any possible Iranian retaliation after an American strike on Fordow. In other words, the American president can now shield himself from future dangers by deceiving the Iranians whom he has already decided to strike. At the same time, however, by delaying American involvement, he presents himself as giving new opportunities to diplomacy, thus justifying the profile of the would-be peacemaker he invested in during the election campaign. In the same context, Trump may hope that the continued Israeli hammering may force Iran to make concessions in the negotiations regarding the future of its missile and nuclear programs.

The Israelis will need US assistance in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow. However, waiting for this American assistance, which is not even certain to come, also carries risks for Israel itself.

While it waits for Trump, Israel is watching its own air defenses become strained. If we end up in a war of endurance and destruction, the first to kneel at some point in the future will clearly be Iran. By the time that happens, however, after weeks or even months, Israel will have – it too – suffered blows it would have preferred to have avoided, while at the same time significantly depleting its anti-missile reserves. And this, without taking into account the cost of the ongoing war and all its consequences (the closed airspace, the restriction of commercial flights, the recession in commercial traffic, etc.) on the Israeli economy after a period of intense military activity such as the one that followed the attacks of October 7, 2023. In other words, Israel may currently seem ready for anything as it carries out operations that it has been planning for years, however, this does not mean that it would not want to untangle itself an hour earlier.

Tehran on the other hand, may also bet on a series of elements that it believes could turn in its favor: the strain on the Israelis, the reluctance of Trump himself to take action, on the potential divergence of views between Israel and the US, on the disagreements within the Republican party.

But as the Israeli pounding continues, the Revolutionary Guards will inevitably see their losses multiply, the Iranian programs (missile and nuclear) will be further weakened, and the theocratic Iranian regime itself will risk seeing its future thrown into doubt.