‘Nothing definitive’ from Trump-Netanyahu meeting, but are Iran strikes inevitable?

LONDON – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have failed in his attempt to push US President Donald Trump to authorise military strikes against Iran.

At the end of

a three-hour meeting in the White House on Feb 11,

Mr Trump said that he “insisted” on continuing US diplomatic feelers with Iran in an effort to avert the use of force.

“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a deal can be consummated,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social, his preferred social media platform.

But the Israeli Prime Minister’s failure in Washington does not mean that a war with Iran was averted. Intense preparations for US-led military strikes against Iran are continuing at a great pace, although the purpose of such strikes is still hotly debated by military planners.

Since Iran crushed with great bloodshed

a wave of anti-government demonstrations in

January

,

Mr Trump has ordered a massive build-up of US forces in the Middle East.

Initially, the move was described as a warning to the Iranian government to halt its internal repression; “Help is on its way,” Mr Trump told anti-government demonstrators in Iran on Jan 13.

Yet soon thereafter, what the US leader refers to as his “armada” of American warships now converging on the region was given a new purpose: extracting major strategic concessions from Iran.

The US President insisted that Iran should not merely give up its quest to develop nuclear weapons but should also agree to ship out all its stock of enriched uranium to another country.

Additionally, Mr Trump also demanded that Iran accept strict limits on the number of ballistic missiles it can either produce or deploy and provide a guarantee that it will no longer fund various proxy militias throughout the Middle East.

The US and Israel already attacked Iran’s nuclear installations in June 2025; at the time, Mr Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear capability was “obliterated”.

But it was always known that Iran’s estimated 440kg stockpile of enriched uranium was either dispersed at various secret locations well before the US and Israeli attacks, or that it had survived the US aerial onslaught.

And Iran has accelerated its build-up of ballistic missiles; according to Israeli intelligence sources, the country will have between 1,800 and 2,000 such missiles by the middle of 2026.

The Israeli Prime Minister spent New Year’s Eve in 2025 at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he appears to have persuaded Mr Trump to move against all these Iranian threats.

But after the first round of talks between US and Iranian negotiators on Feb 6, the Israelis are worried that Mr Trump may settle for just a deal on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and ignore the broader questions of Iran’s missile arsenal, or Iranian support for various proxies such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

So, Mr Netanyahu decided to fly to Washington for his seventh meeting with the US President since Mr Trump returned to power, in the hope of persuading the Americans to toughen their negotiating stance.

“I will present to the President our view on the principles of these negotiations,” Mr Netanyahu told reporters as he left Israel for his Feb 11 White House meeting.

The Israelis are no longer pushing for just destroying Iran’s key military capabilities; they are also arguing that US air strikes on Iran could result in regime change, the overthrow of the country’s clerical regime.

Mr Tzachi Hanegbi, who until recently was Mr Netanyahu’s national security adviser, claims that “powerful, continuous and precise blows from the air and sea, without the use of ground forces, over a period of several weeks”, will result in the collapse of the Iranian power structures.

Mr Netanyahu’s latest trip to the US does not appear to have been very successful.

Although the Israeli Prime Minister was accommodated at Blair House, the official US residence reserved for top visiting heads of state or government, Mr Netanyahu was given no official reception ceremony. He entered the White House through a back door reserved for local employees.

There was also no press conference or official communique at the end of his discussions with the US President. And Mr Trump’s subsequent claim that he “insisted” on the principle that US talks with Iran should continue undisturbed must also be interpreted as a clear rebuff of Mr Netanyahu’s arguments.

Still, a substantial military showdown between the US and Iran remains likely.

To start with, the apparent differences between Israel and the US may be more about tactics, rather than long-term objectives. Mr Trump has no interest in limiting his freedom of manoeuvre by accepting an Israeli-dictated agenda. But he is also attracted to the idea of defeating the Iranian regime, a task no US president since Mr Jimmy Carter half a century ago managed to accomplish.

Behind the scenes, intense military cooperation between Israel and the US continues unabated. Brigadier-General Omer Tischler, a decorated fighter pilot who is slated to become Israel’s next air force commander, has just been appointed as his country’s top military liaison officer in Washington.

Meanwhile, Major-General Shlomi Binder, who heads Israel’s military intelligence, as well as Mr David Barnea, the boss of Mossad, Israel’s top spying agency, remain in daily contact with their Washington-based counterparts and the planners of CENTCOM, the US command responsible for managing Middle East operations.

Mr Trump has also hinted at the possibility that the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, currently off the Atlantic shores of the US, could be ordered to join the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier naval group already within striking distance of Iran.

The US is also rushing through substantial air defence missile batteries required to protect Israel and US military bases throughout the Middle East, all of which are evident preparations for a substantial and lengthy military operation against Iran.

And although Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claims that his diplomatic contacts with the US amounted to a “good beginning”, all the indications are that Iran is only prepared to offer a compromise under which the country would dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, rather than give up its nuclear capabilities as the US demands.

So although Mr Trump appears to have rejected Israel’s arguments for an immediate strike, the US and Iran are still hurtling towards war.