Netanyahu urged Trump to strike Iran, ex-Pentagon chief’s new book suggests

Redacted quotes in a new book by former US defense secretary Mark Esper suggest that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on US President Donald Trump to take direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program.

In the book, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, Esper notes that Trump seemed firm in his commitment not to enter a war with Iran, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Tuesday.

He writes: “The president often had others in the room, and foreign leaders like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him [REDACTED].”

Several sections of the book have been redacted by the US Department of Defence, and Esper is currently suing the Pentagon over this, charging that “significant text is being improperly withheld from publication … under the guise of classification”.

Following the redacted quote, Esper writes: “Netanyahu would say this to me when I met with him, so I was confident he was telling Trump the same thing.”

“In my view, that seemed like a big bet to take, especially when there wasn’t a pressing need to take it anytime soon,” Esper writes.

He goes on to cite Israeli media reports and Israeli defense officials saying that Iran was still two years away from assembling a nuclear weapon.

While the quote has been redacted to make it unclear as to whether Netanyahu had indeed suggested to Trump that the US militarily attack Iran’s nuclear program, Esper’s book comes at the same time as another upcoming book by journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker that makes the same claim.

According to the two journalists, Netanyahu implored the Trump administration to attack Iran from the moment it was clear that the election results had gone against Trump. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is quoted as saying: “If you do this, you’re gonna have a fucking war.”