Israel's 'proxies' are misleading Trump on true costs of war with Iran, says analyst

An international lawyer says Israel is attempting to mislead the Trump administration into underestimating the repercussions of a potential war with Iran.

Reza Nasri, an international lawyer and foreign policy analyst, has said that the Israeli regime’s “proxies” are attempting to mislead the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump regarding Iran’s deterrence capabilities with the aim of making him underestimate the real consequences of a war with Iran.  

“Israel, through its “proxies” within the Trump administration—such as Mike Waltz—has been systematically misleading the President into believing that Iran’s deterrence capabilities have been effectively neutralized. This misrepresentation is designed to make @realDonaldTrump underestimate the true costs and consequences of a war with Iran,” Nasri, an Iranian national, wrote on his X account on Monday.  

He attached to his post an extract of White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz’s interview with “Face The Nation” of CBS News, which was broadcast on Sunday.  

In that interview, Waltz claimed that “Iran is in the worst place that it has been from its own national security since 1979 thanks to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Assad regime and its own air defenses being taken out by the Israelis.”

“Waltz is cut from the same cloth as those Washington insiders who once convinced George W. Bush that U.S. troops would be greeted with flowers after the invasion of Iraq,” said Nasri in his post, in reference to the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 under former president George W. Bush.

On March 7, Trump said that he had sent a letter to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, a month after the U.S. president restored his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. A week later, Iran said it had received the letter via the UAE, emphasizing that the Islamic Republic would not negotiate under pressure.

According to the international lawyer, as long as figures like Waltz continue to influence U.S. policy on Iran’s nuclear program, “Tehran will see little reason to engage in negotiations - viewing these proxies as likely to sabotage talks or ensure their collapse.”

Nasri believes that Donald Trump should proceed “with caution,” as Iran “will not interpret this mixed messaging as he might intend, nor will it view it as a calculated “good cop, bad cop” tactic. Instead, Waltz’s role will likely deepen Tehran’s conviction that dealing with the U.S. diplomatically is pointless.”