The news that Donald Trump put on 14 pounds from his previous physical to his most recent one is indicative of the stress that attends the effort to defeat Iran and its proxies.
While Trump justifiably points to American military success against the Iranian regime, his threats to continue the infliction carry increasingly less weight and credibility.
Instead, Trump increasingly resembles a Western tourist who wandered into the Bazaar and is at the mercy of the canny, unscrupulous and oh so effective negotiators that Iranians are.
The current brilliant Iranian maneuver is to claim that the perpetual delays unto cessations of the negotiations between the US and Iran are attributable to (you guessed it) Israel and its incessant attacks in Lebanon on simpering and cowering Hezbollah.
According to Iran, the terms of a negotiated deal include most prominently its application to Lebanon. In other words, if you want us to stop, you Trump must stop Israel from attacking Hezbollah.
In other words, you have to do with the Israelis what we ourselves could not do: stymie them.
There are a number of real difficulties with this stance. First and foremost, Hezbollah has not stopped its rocket and drone attacks, ceasefire or not. Secondly, pseudo-ceasefires expose our ground soldiers to greater harm as they hold ground but refrain from engaging.
And lastly, all of this has more than a faint whiff of extortion, whereby Israel involuntarily delegates its freedom of decision and movement to the US and agrees to forfeit its sovereign choices of action.
Unfortunately, Trump has completely played into the Iranians’ hands and is being far more restraining and deterring of Israel than Hezbollah or Iran have ever been - on a par with his predecessors in the White House.
One of the major implications of this subordination has been the déjà vu sense of growing vulnerability and fear of attack in the North. While the Israeli government has been pounding the table for the protection of these endangered communities, the reality is that drone attacks have increased.
The killing of some 15 soldiers and the injuring of dozens more by these drones is horror enough, and the increasing paralysis of northern communities only adds to the pain.
So where does this lead? To the extent that the security of northern communities is a primary priority for our government, being a passive punching bag is a sure lose strategy.
Israel has succeeded in dominating most of the land south of the Litani River and is now making forays into occupying up to the Zahrani River, a move that would further insulate northernmost communities such as Metulla from ground or anti-tank attack.
However, the great threat of the moment is coming from rockets and drones. Even if, as the IDF claims, the vast majority have been destroyed, when you start from an amassed stockpile of 150,000 rockets, a residual 10 or 20 percent is an enormous number.
The frightening reality of both rockets and drones is that they can be launched or fired from virtually anywhere in Lebanon and reach northern Israel. This therefore lessens the importance of the ground invasion, consigning its benefits to threats no longer perceived.
So what will stop rockets and drones? Quite simply the calculation by Hezbollah that the benefit of the attacks is not worth their cost. And what cost would be deemed determinative in prompting Hezbollah to stand down?
The risk of the destruction of The Dahieh, Hezbollah’s national stronghold in the southern part of Beirut.
The Dahieh is the symbol of Hezbollah legitimacy and control. Its diminution puts Hezbollah into a more weakened stance, not just internationally, but perhaps more importantly, domestically.
While Prime Minister Netanyahu has shown himself over the years to be an adroit and skillful player on the world stage, he usually was seeking to navigate with oppositional players. Now he must somehow confront or deflect a true ally, Donald Trump.
Trump’s is the personification of the suffocating bear hug: attention, but on his terms. He has midterm elections on his mind. Unfortunately, Netanyahu is also facing an impending election and a highly skeptical electorate that will regard the near term progress in Lebanon, or lack thereof as a major barometer issue on his candidacy.
While Netanyahu does not want to alienate Trump, he surely does not want to look bereft to his citizenry.
Apart from the political considerations, there are the existential ones. Israel is a sovereign democracy and needs to make decisions that address the needs and priorities of its citizenry.
In other words, Netanyahu cannot afford - election wise, legacy wise or sovereignty wise - to fail to confront and to defeat Hezbollah.
He needs to be firm with Trump as only friends can be and must bifurcate the talks with Iran from the threat from Lebanon. Trump must stand tough against Iranian insistence of coupling the ending of fighting in both Iran and Lebanon.
While I have not been a fly on the wall for their conversations, I have to believe that a tough, principled and yes, shrewd, Netanyahu can make Trump see why it is imperative that Israel not be impeded from doing what it needs to do in Lebanon.
Such understanding is the true mark of alliance and should, indeed, must be pursued right now.
Douglas Altabef is the Chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu and a Director of the Israel Independence Fund. He lives with his family in Rosh Pina in northern Israel.