Trump-Israel Dispute Raises Questions About Chain Of Command

President Donald Trump’s dispute with unnamed Israeli officials appeared to come to an end as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted his country “acted alone” in its attack on the Iranian South Pars gas field. Prior to Netanyahu’s statement, anonymous Israeli officials told the press that the American government actually had advance knowledge of the Israeli attack after Trump himself said the U.S. did not know about the operation.

Israel’s strike on the gas field prompted Iran to retaliate against Qatar. According to Trump, Qatar was also unaware that the Israeli attack would take place. While Netanyahu promised to “hold off on future attacks,” the dispute highlights growing concern about a lack of a unified chain of command in the Israel-U.S. war with Iran.

Shortly after Israel’s Wednesday attack on the South Pars gas field, Trump posted to social media, “Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran,” Trump wrote. “The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.” Trump then added:

Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion off Qatar’s LNG Gas facility. NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar — In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before. I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications that it will have on the future of Iran, but if Qatar’s LNG is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so.

Three unnamed Israeli officials counter-signaled Trump, however, stating that the U.S. actually helped coordinate the attack and was therefore aware of it.

As The Federalist CEO Sean Davis observed, “This is reminiscent of Israel’s missile attack against Qatar last September, which killed an innocent Qatari, in the midst of U.S. negotiations with Qatar and Israel to end the war in Gaza. The perception at the time was that the attack was designed to blow up the peace negotiations. Trump was so furious he forced Netanyahu to call Qatar and read a letter of apology word for word.”

Iran’s counterstrikes on the energy infrastructure of U.S. ally Qatar, which shares the gas field with Iran, prompted officials there to say Israel’s actions were “dangerous and irresponsible.”

This is seemingly not the first time Israel has acted unilaterally in the war, after it struck other fuel infrastructure in Iran a couple of weeks ago. Responding to those attacks, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said that in “that particular case those weren’t our strikes.”

Earlier this month, Hegseth indicated more explicitly that Israel does act on its own and pursues objectives that are not necessarily aligned with American interests, stating, “Israel has been a really strong partner in this effort. Where they have different objectives, they’ve pursued them. Ultimately, we’ve stayed focused on ours.”

The bifurcated campaigns represent a departure from the United States’ historic practice of prosecuting wars with a unified chain of command with its allies. The Pentagon has not been clear about why there is not a unified chain of command, and when asked Thursday about the implications of allowing Israel to pursue its own objectives, Hegseth said, “We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well, and the truth speaks for itself.”

“President Trump was very clear about that. Iran has weaponized energy for decades, Israel clearly sent a warning, and POTUS has made it clear, very clear: Iran knows when you hit Kharg Island and you hit military capabilities on Kharg Island, which is the only thing we hit, we can hold anything at issue, anything,” Hegseth said. “The United States military controls the fate of that country. Iran has the ability to make the right choices. It should not, going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries.”

The muddled chain of command also raises concerns about whether the Iran war will be a protracted one. Israel’s attack on the South Pars gas field, which came with negative consequences for other U.S. allies in the region, required the American government to come in and do damage control. As long as that is the state of play, the U.S. could keep being forced to respond accordingly. The dynamic could also affect U.S. plans for ending the conflict or post-operation negotiations with Iran.

Questions about Israel’s coordination with the United States (or lack thereof) go back to the outbreak of the conflict. Early this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking about the United States’ decision to strike Iran when it did because a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran was purportedly imminent, said the U.S. needed to get in front of that to protect American lives in the region.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act,” he said March 2.

The Trump administration is under an enormous amount of pressure to prevent this conflict from descending into a forever war. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appears to believe that the war will be over in a matter of weeks, well before it has an effect on the midterm elections. At the same time, the Pentagon is asking for $200 billion in supplemental funding to continue to prosecute the war, and Johnson seems inclined to back a measure that would provide the funding.

“It takes money to kill bad guys. So we’re going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is — everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond,” Hesgseth said at Thursday’s press conference.

“We’re also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was depleting those stockholds and not sending them to our own military but to Ukraine,” he added, noting most munitions challenges faced by the United States can be traced back to Ukraine.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.