Trump and Netanyahu – two authoritarians in search of a legacy

The Israeli leader has scored a tactical victory against Iran. But that alone is unlikely to bring him victory, either at home or abroad

June 14, 2025 (The New World) — On Friday morning, after decades of threats often dismissed as political theatre, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorised an Israeli air assault on Iran as an existential necessity for the Jewish state.

For Netanyahu, the timing was as critical as the targeting, and as personal as it was strategic. Facing plunging approval ratings, mounting calls for his resignation, and a trust deficit he may never recover from, Netanyahu needed a dramatic pivot: “Operation Rising Lion” gave him one. By framing the strike in the language of state survival, he cast himself once again as the uncompromising and indispensable guardian of Israeli survival.

Facing a public that wants him gone, he announced the attacks in language calculated to cast himself as the saviour. If Iran wasn’t stopped, he said, “it could produce a nuclear weapon within a very short time”. As it was, he claimed, Iran already had enough enriched uranium for nine atom bombs.