President Donald Trump is meeting with two key allies in Washington at a critical moment when once-distinct wars in Ukraine and Iran are now colliding — and the U.S. military commitment to aid its friends is in question.
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu head to the Oval Office for separate meetings with the president Tuesday, both men will seek commitments of support from Trump as their now-shared enemies in Tehran work to weaken them across multiple fronts.
The leaders are visiting Washington to honor a common ally who long championed their causes: the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a man both Zelenskyy and Netanyahu had leaned on as a key intermediary who could gain Trump’s ear with his hawkish positions on Ukraine and Israel.
Shared adversaries
The three leaders now share a common adversary in Iran, which has long supplied drones to Russia for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to U.S. and European officials. And now Zelenskyy says he has information for the Trump administration about Russia helping Iran target American bases in the Middle East.
Days after three U.S. soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan — raising questions about the sophistication level of recent Iranian attacks on American forces in the region — Zelenskyy said he would be sharing intelligence about “Russia’s new assistance” to Iran.
“Since the beginning of July, we have recorded active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and U.S. military facilities located there,” Zelenskyy said in an address Saturday, noting the correlation between Russia’s satellite imagery and four bases across Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait targeted by Iran on July 19 and July 20.
“The purpose is clear,” he added. “None of us in the world should turn a blind eye to one very simple fact: Evil always seeks ways to make things worse and spread further. Russia must be stopped.”
Trump was skeptical as to whether his Ukrainian counterpart’s claims were true.
“I’ll ask Putin about it,” he told reporters Monday on Air Force One. “I don’t think they’ve been doing it, certainly not at a high level, and if they have, it has been very unimpactful.”
But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth conceded in testimony to lawmakers last week that Russia, along with China, had been “enabling some of the things Iran is doing.”
And it is not just Russia veering into a once-distant conflict.
Over the weekend, Ukraine struck vessels Zelenskyy said were transporting military assets between Iran and Russia through the Caspian Sea. The foreign minister of Iran said the drone strikes killed a sailor on an Iranian ship, calling the attack “a blatant UN Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war.”
Getting on the same page
Before heading to Washington, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu said Iran would be top of the agenda.
“I am embarking on this mission with one clear goal — to ensure the security, strength and future of our dear State of Israel,” Netanyahu said, noting this would be his eighth meeting with Trump in the U.S. during his second term — more than any other foreign leader.
After months of waiting for an invitation, it will also be their first meeting since Netanyahu’s Situation Room visit in February that reportedly led to the protracted Iran war. Since then, the allies’ shared goals have diverged — and Netanyahu has a shot to get both countries back on the same page after Trump publicly called him “crazy” and questioned his judgement in recent weeks.
In March, a White House official told MS NOW that Operation Epic Fury had five objectives: to destroy the threats posed by Iran’s ballistic missiles, its missile industry, its navy, its armed proxies and the regime’s ability to possess a nuclear weapon.
Five months later, the U.S. has failed to curb Iran’s support for armed proxies — like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi militants in Yemen — and is further than ever from a long-term nuclear agreement.
And despite Trump and Netanyahu once stressing the need for regime change in Tehran, both countries assess that is a far-off reality.
For Israel, those outstanding issues are existential concerns given its geographic proximity to Iran and its proxy forces. And Netanyahu has long been skeptical that a diplomatic deal with Iran is even possible.
Trump “wants to make sure that going back to war would be the last resort,” an Israeli official told MS NOW. “We see the Iranian regime in a more realistic point of view because we dealt with them for so many years. … There is not a lot of room for error on our end.”
Israel, notably, has not taken part in the U.S. bombing campaign of the past two weeks aimed at getting Tehran back to the negotiating table.
Ukraine’s position of power
Zelenskyy’s position of power has increased since he was admonished by Vice President JD Vance last year. Ukraine is holding its own against Russia’s continued invasion, and the U.S. wants to benefit from Ukrainian drone innovations and counterdrone defense strategies.
But Trump’s unwillingness to offer explicit security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a would-be Ukraine-Russia ceasefire agreement has rankled Zelenskyy in his quest to attain military protections from the U.S. and NATO allies.
Just one month into Trump’s second term, Zelenskyy pleaded with Trump in the Oval Office in what would be the first of now 10 face-to-face meetings: “We will never accept just a ceasefire — it will not work without security guarantees.”
Since that meeting, Trump has given overtures to Ukraine that he has broadened his aperture to ensure that any deal would include guarantees — yet he has not offered specifics.
When MS NOW asked NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte after a White House meeting in October if Trump detailed specific guarantees that the U.S. would make alongside NATO, Rutte responded, “There has been a clear commitment by the U.S. to participate.”
Nine months later, Trump still offered no clear assurances.
“We’ll work on some kind of a security package that will make sure —,” Trump began to say before cutting himself off at the annual NATO summit in Turkey in early July. He then dismissed the notion that Russia would attack Ukraine after agreeing to a potential ceasefire. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Trump said. “If we make a deal, Russia is going to be very happy, and they’re going to get on with other things.”
But just as Trump has resisted promising the U.S. would defend Ukraine in the long term, he is also holding up immediate funding for Ukraine’s defense. The Trump administration still has not released $400 million in congressionally appropriated assistance for Ukraine, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifying to lawmakers last month that “there is urgency in trying to get this resolved and delivered.”
As for Iran’s threat to retaliate against Ukraine for its attack on Iranian vessels, Zelenskyy struck a firm but cautious tone.
“We have to do everything not to open a new front in any way, but we have to be honest,” Zelenskyy told Sky News on Sunday. “Iranians and North Koreans already attacked us. Yes, I hope that they will not increase these attacks, but we have to be ready for everything.”
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