{"id":758438,"date":"2026-07-12T11:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T11:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/758438\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T11:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T11:40:12","slug":"john-deaton-trumps-iran-approach-is-harming-perceptions-of-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/758438\/","title":{"rendered":"John Deaton: Trump’s Iran approach is harming perceptions of Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s popularity in the United States is waning<\/a>, including among the next generation of Republican leaders, due in large part to US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s failure to communicate the objectives of the current war with Iran to the public, congressional hopeful John Deaton told The Jerusalem Post on Friday.<\/p>\n

Deaton is a moderate in the Republican camp. He has accused Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of being more critical of Israel than of the Islamic Republic and its terrorist proxies. At the same time, he has called for greater scrutiny of US aid to Israel<\/a> and Ukraine, arguing that Washington should more carefully assess both the scale of its assistance and the benefits it receives in return. He has also accused Netanyahu of weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to shield himself and Israel from legitimate criticism, even while acknowledging the unacceptable state of antisemitism in the US.<\/p>\n

For Deaton, maintaining the trust of American voters is paramount. He said he would refuse campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC<\/a>), arguing that doing so would reassure voters that his support for Israel stems from his convictions rather than financial influence. He offered the comments to The Post after being questioned while attending July 4 parades about his stance on Israel and the origins of his campaign funding, questions he said were notably absent when he attended the same parades in 2024.<\/p>\n

The basis of trust is communication, and that personal conviction is likely where his criticism of Netanyahu and Trump\u2019s handling of the Iran threat has stemmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do blame a lot of this, the Iran war situation, on a failure of communication by the Trump administration. For example, how did we obliterate Iran? We can all agree, and I certainly agree, that every president – whether it\u2019s President Clinton, President George W. Bush, the first President Bush, President Obama, or President Trump – has said Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Period. We know they will use it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut how did we obliterate them in June 2025 and set them back decades? Was it bad intelligence when you said that, President Trump? Was that just bad intelligence? And did you not decimate them? If that\u2019s true, fine, because bad intelligence sometimes is faulty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Iran flag and Israel flag (credit: Cottonbro Studio\/Pexels)Mixed messages about Iran\u2019s progress<\/p>\n

There are mixed messages about Iran\u2019s progress in achieving a nuclear weapons arsenal. Tulsi Gabbard, a Trump ally and former director of national intelligence, said in March that there were no signs that Iran was rebuilding their enrichment capabilities after the 12 Day War, though Trump deemed that the renewed kinetic action was necessary because Tehran posed an imminent threat.<\/p>\n

Without communicating the reasons for the renewed action, whether that be because June was less successful than previously celebrated or because of a new threat posed by the regime, the unpopularity of the war and rising costs associated with the closure of Hormuz<\/a> has led many to point blame at Israel, Deaton noted, claiming that the \u201ctrust me bro\u201d approach being adopted now has only deepened the crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI blame the current administration for what I believe is an abysmal lack of communication. I know this sounds silly, but it\u2019s almost like a \u2018trust me, bro\u2019 kind of approach. Americans are rejecting that because of the cost of living, and they need more information. If you ask the average American about the significance of the Strait of Hormuz, they don\u2019t know that it is the world\u2019s most important chokepoint for global oil trade, or that it can impact up to 25% or more of global oil trade. They have no idea how that affects their daily lives,\u201d he explained. \u201cIn fact, you hear these inconsistent comments. President Trump, on one hand, will say, \u2018We don\u2019t need the Strait of Hormuz. We\u2019re independent, and we only get less than 2% of our oil from that region.\u2019 To the everyday American, that sounds like we shouldn\u2019t be involved in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s own reported comments to Netanyahu in June, that \u201cEverybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” were a sign that Trump was blaming Netanyahu for the failed operation, Deaton hinted.<\/p>\n

What likely fueled Trump\u2019s decision to go to war in February, Deaton argued, was the momentum from the success of the Venezuela operation, a swift mission to arrest Nicol\u00e1s Maduro carried out without casualties. He said Trump may have believed that achieving a free Iran under similar conditions would be celebrated as the greatest military achievement in US history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think both Trump and Bibi need to answer for a colossal failure of intelligence. Did they not believe the Strait of Hormuz would be closed? Was the intelligence that they would be able to prevent Iran from controlling the Strait of Hormuz? I don\u2019t know if they ever played that out,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s almost as if you had a couple of egomaniacs in a back room saying, \u2018Listen, if this goes our way, this is going to be the greatest thing to ever happen in the last half century, and we\u2019ll be heroes,\u2019 and then made a decision based on that. That\u2019s how many people perceive it. It\u2019s how I perceive it… And now you have, in my opinion, a less secure Israel and a less secure world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having served seven years in the US Marines, Deaton assessed that the war with Iran has only left the regime in a stronger position and that Washington now has limited options moving forward. He argued that the potential $100 billion in annual revenue Iran could generate by charging vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, alongside Tehran\u2019s push for sovereignty over the waterway, would likely not have materialized had the war not begun.<\/p>\n

The war has revealed the American mindset to Tehran<\/p>\n

More pressing is that Tehran now understands the American psyche, which involves little patience and a desire for immediate results.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran figured out that Americans\u2019 patience gets exhausted quickly. These forever wars \u2014 we want Iran to be done and over with. Americans are sick of it. Like the parades I was telling you about, people were blaming me because I\u2019m a Republican. They were saying, \u2018Your war, John. Your war.\u2019 And even if I didn\u2019t originally think it was justified, I don\u2019t think they explained why we needed to do it,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n

Deaton said he had little doubt about the US\u2019s ability to seize Kharg Island and establish control over the Strait of Hormuz, but how long Washington would be willing to maintain such a position was a separate question entirely.<\/p>\n

For the American public to accept the deployment of military personnel on the ground, Trump would need to explain why it was in US interests to station troops within range of Iranian missiles, with limited time to respond, for a prolonged period.<\/p>\n

Though the rift is undoubtedly widening, Deaton said Israel could regain some international trust if Netanyahu were no longer in a position of power.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m assuming it doesn\u2019t surprise you if you have elected American leaders who describe Bibi as a terrorist\u2026What I\u2019m getting at is that perception becomes reality, even if it\u2019s not reality. If you have leaders – if you have people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are very significant figures – saying that Bibi is a terrorist and that he is committing genocide, and those views gain influence, that filters down to the electorate and to everyday people. Then, five years later, you end up asking, \u2018Why are we even allies with Israel?\u2019\u201d he commented, noting that as bad as public perceptions are now, the true crisis hasn\u2019t yet hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just honestly think it’s indisputable right now that Iran is in a stronger position, and that’s something I think Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump need to answer for,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s popularity in the United States is waning, including among the next generation of Republican leaders, due in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[324799,23,5620,12,801,803,3,21,19,22,20,25,30094,24],"class_list":["post-758438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-aipac","tag-america","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-politics","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}