Trump and Netanyahu sold this as control - now Israel’s getting blasted, Lebanon’s blowing wide open, and the lies are falling apart. Right, so Tel Aviv has been hit again. Central Israel has been under alerts again. Explosions have been reported again. And Donald Trump has chosen that exact moment to announce that Washington must have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader. What planet is he on? He’s up against the wall right now, the Middle East is on fire and he thinks somehow, he’s winning. Israel gets hit in public, the promise of control starts looking very thin, and the man backing Benjamin Netanyahu decides this is the perfect time to talk not like a defender, not like a mediator, but like somebody auditioning for the job of Emperor. Well this one is wearing no clothes and that is a horrible mental image for which I will apologise for. Netanyahu is still widening the war, increasingly moving into Lebanon now as well as continuing atrocities across the Palestinian territory. Trump is all but declaring victory even though Iran is very much still firing and apparently is still using stock right now more than 10 years old – they’re not even into the modern stuff yet. So this is not a neat campaign under tight management. That is a story slipping increasingly out of control for Trump and Co, with Israel and all those Gulf states the US swore to protect in exchange for those bases very still on the receiving end of Iranian fire. Donald Trump has not misspoken here though. He has not been dragged off message by some stray microphone or an awkward media question causing him to soil himself. He has said out loud that the US wants a say in who runs Iran next.