The phone call

Vice President JD Vance reportedly chided Benjamin Netanyahu in a tense phone call for overselling the chances of regime change in Iran. It is the first visible crack between Washington and Jerusalem over the war's objectives, after four weeks of seemingly smooth coordination.

The tension has a specific context. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate the Iranian regime "appears to be intact, although largely degraded". Netanyahu, for his part, declared this week that Iran "has no ability to enrich uranium" or "produce ballistic missiles", and that the war would be "recorded in the annals of Israel." But Israel's military chief warned ministers that the armed forces are under "severe strain" from manpower shortages and expanded operational demands.

The gap between Netanyahu's rhetoric and the American intelligence assessment is what apparently prompted Vance's complaint. Israel needs the war presented as a strategic success to justify continued escalation. Washington needs an exit narrative that does not look like defeat. The two needs are incompatible if the Iranian regime is still standing and firing missiles at Tel Aviv. Vance, who before the war was one of the most sceptical Republicans about military interventions in the Middle East, may be seeing what Trump does not yet want to admit: that the war is not going as advertised.