The Tariff Fig Leaf: Netanyahu’s Visit and the Gathering Storm Over Iran

Diplomacy, that genteel art of saying one thing while preparing for quite another, is once again performing its elegant deceit. We are told — solemnly and without irony — that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flown to Washington, mid-conflict and under sirens, to negotiate a 17% tariff.

This, at a time when Gaza is ablaze, American warships flood the Red Sea, B-2 bombers ghost their way into Diego Garcia, and the Iranian regime begins to issue pronouncements from on high. One struggles to believe that the real concern is import duties — unless the product in question is Bibles.

While Netanyahu walks the carpeted corridors of the West Wing, the unmistakable choreography of pre-positioned force is unfolding across the region. Six B-2 stealth bombers — rarely deployed, always strategic — now crouch quietly in the Indian Ocean, their presence less a message than a contingency. F-35As, unrivaled in stealth and electronic warfare, have been dispatched to augment U.S. airpower in the theater. The Harry S. Truman and Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Groups are not on pleasure cruises. Meanwhile, Patriot and THAAD batteries, relocated from East Asia, are being reassembled in sand and heat — their radars trained on more serious skies.

This is not military diplomacy. This is military geometry.

Tehran, ever fluent in the semiotics of American hardware, has responded in kind. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has placed Iran’s armed forces on high alert. More pointedly, the regime has warned regional neighbors not to abet what it fears — or perhaps expects — is coming. It is a familiar performance. The Islamic Republic has long governed through confrontation, and now it speaks once more with the practiced cadence of a regime that thrives on perpetual crisis.

Of course, crisis alone is not the story. The deeper plot lies in the convergence now taking place between Israel and a newly reinstalled White House. Donald Trump, no longer tethered by the cautious instincts of first-term advisors, returns to office with fewer illusions and greater latitude. His record on Iran is nothing if not consistent: withdrawal from the JCPOA, maximum economic pressure, and the decisive removal of Qassem Soleimani.

Netanyahu, who once held up cartoon bombs at the United Nations to illustrate the Iranian threat, may now find a strategic symmetry he lacked during previous American administrations. The timing of his visit — coming as assets deploy and Tehran rattles — invites the question: is this meeting about policy, or is it about plans?

Hezbollah, once a looming force on Israel’s northern border, now operates from a diminished position: drained by years of Syrian entanglements, paralyzed from a delusional war with Israel it initiated, hobbled by Lebanon’s collapse, and wary of broader war. The Houthis, meanwhile, are being struck with regularity by American aircraft. These are not standalone developments. They are openings in a map long drawn in back rooms.

The official story, of course, must remain intact: Israel and the United States, aligning once more on matters of commerce. But beneath that diplomatic lace, steel is moving.

A strike on Iran — once the obsession of think tanks and saboteurs — may now be edging closer to the realm of executive action. Whether such an operation would come with full coordination, or with the convenient ambiguity of deniability, remains to be seen. But the infrastructure is there. The precedent, too.

And so the fiction of the tariff remains useful. A meeting that would otherwise stir anxiety can be clothed in the familiar banalities of trade. No one objects to economic dialogue. No one sounds alarms over Holy Books.

But this is no trade summit. This is a moment of alignment — political, military, and strategic. Netanyahu arrives not with bargaining chips but with a dossier. The conversations behind closed doors will concern not goods, but red lines. Not quotas, but flight paths.

The tariff? That’s the fig leaf.