President Trump leaves G7 summit early to deal with the Israel-Iran conflict.

 

President Trump stands with the leadership of the G7 countries. ABC News/Getty.

President Trump will leave the G7 summit early to deal with the Israel-Iran conflict. ABC News. Though Trump signed a major trade deal with the United Kingdom, he will leave the Canadian hosted summit to return to the United States, skipping a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and Mexican President Sheinbaum. The announcement came after Trump issued a warning to Iran on Truth Social, asking them to both make a deal and "evacuate Tehran" the capital. Trump also said during a press conference with Canadian Prime Minster Carney that Iran wasn't winning the war and that they should talk immediately. 

My Comment:

Things are heating up to be sure. The optimistic take is that Iran is going to get the message and Trump had to head home to try and get a deal in place. It's clear he wants the war to end with diplomacy and not spiral out of control and his Truth post is a good example of trying to intimidate Iran into making a deal. He's making a threat, but probably an empty one, and one that will put pressure on Iran's government to make a deal. 

The pessimistic take is that something major has happened that absolutely forced Trump to return. I can think of two reasons why that would happen. The first would be that Israel is going to launch a major strike on Tehran itself. Not so much the city but the Tehran nuclear research facility. Such a strike would be dangerous as it could result in a release of radiation. The amount would not be a lot, but it could absolutely kill and injure people exposed to it. It wouldn't be a city destroying thing or anything but it would be a serious incident. The repercussions from that would mean that Trump absolutely has to head home. 

The second scenario is that something happened and that there is a real chance of the United States going to war with Iran. There have been a few military deployments that could support that view, like the deployment of the USS Nimitz to the Middle East, but I find this very unlikely. 

Why? Trump pretty obviously does not want war. He has always been a diplomat and it sure seems like this is just an intimidation tactic. The only way I could see America joining the war directly is if it was to avoid a strike on US interests or to prevent Israel from doing something stupid. Iran has made noise about striking the US but not officially, and they would be insane to do so. I guess it is possible that our intel agencies caught wind of an upcoming strike, but is Iran that stupid? I don't think so. 

But could Israel do something stupid? It's possible. The only nuclear site that Israel can hit easily is the one in Tehran, as it's not hardened and underground like the two more important sites at Fordo and Natanz. Israel doesn't actually have the weapons to destroy those two sites as they are underground. They would need American penetrator bombs to even seriously damage those sites. Or perhaps nuclear weapons. Such a launch would be an extreme escalation and would probably lose all credibility Israel has left, so I doubt it would be something that could happen. But you never know. 

There is also a fear that Israel could launch a "false flag" against US forces or civilians and that could be what Trump is responding too. I find that pretty ridiculous, false flags very uncommon and when they do happen they are very easy to spot. I just think that theory is just a rather deranged conspiracy theory by the same folks that think everything is a false flag.  

Hilariously, it's possible that Trump just wanted out of the G7 summit. The important work was done, the only thing he really wanted out of the summit was the deal with the UK. Trump doesn't really care about the other things the G7 was working on, like the meeting with Zelensky. Indeed, this could be seen as a diplomatic insult to him, a message that the United States is not really interested in dealing with Ukraine anymore when there is a conflict that might actually be solved. Iran would be the perfect excuse to skip town. This is pretty unlikely but I kind of want it to be true. 

What is my take? I am guessing the optimistic scenario is the real one. Trump is known to talk loud but he is also very eager to make a deal. He absolutely likes turning enemies into friends and is practically begging the Iranians to play ball. This is most likely a pretty obvious attempt to intimidate them into playing ball. 

And they absolutely should. The war has been pretty one sided at this point. Iran hasn't had any real victories so far, just some missile strikes that accomplished very little in terms of stopping the Israeli air strikes. And their air force and air defenses have been complete no shows. They are at the point where they can claim the strikes they have done have satisfied honor and making a peace deal is the best move they can make. Hopefully they will do so.