Five months ago, Trump was promised a quick victory; instead, he got a grinding regional war.
The Strait of Hormuz is closed, U.S munitions are running low, American service members have been killed, and energy prices have gone through the roof.
On paper, this should be the moment Trump breaks with Netanyahu, but Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali argues it isn't that simple.
His point isn't that Trump lacks the power to stop Israel; it's that the political cost of doing so may be enormous.
Most people assume Netanyahu's strongest supporters in the U.S are American Jews, but Wajahat says they're looking in the wrong place.
He argues Netanyahu's most important political base is millions of evangelical Christian Zionists who make up a crucial part of Trump's Republican coalition.
Alongside the lobbying power of AIPAC, congressional support and decades of institutional backing for Israel, that creates a political machine that few American presidents have been willing to confront.
Wajahat's argument is that if Washington turned off the tap, Israel would have little choice but to change course.
So the issue isn't whether Trump has the power, it's whether he has the political will to use it.
That's why Netanyahu's trip to Washington matters so much.
Trump knows the war has become economically painful, politically damaging and strategically costly for the U.S.
If he still leaves the meeting committed to Netanyahu's agenda, Wajahat believes it will be because the political forces surrounding Israel inside the U.S proved stronger than the instincts of a president who promised to put America First.
@WajahatAli
