Michael Goodwin: Trump and Netanyahu have a shared purpose for Iran — however the media pits them in opposition to one another

When it comes to the war against Iran, the first drafts of history are being especially unkind to the free world’s architects.

So much so that, in certain pathetic quarters, the ayatollah and his henchmen get better press coverage than President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The attacks from The New York Times and other American leftists accusing Trump of being duped by Netanyahu into joining the war are absurd, but it turns out the charges have an equally absurd counterpart in Israel.

There, the growing claim is that Netanyahu is such a wishy-washy junior partner that he refuses to stand up to Trump when the president supposedly makes decisions that are not in the best interests of Israel’s security.

There you have it, both men are simultaneously evil and craven.

As a recent headline in The Times of Israel put it, “Repeatedly Deferring to Trump, Netanyahu Subjects Israeli Security to US President’s Whim.”

The author cites as an example Trump’s decision to halt the fighting and declare a two-week cease-fire so settlement talks with Iran could begin. Trump’s decision, writer Lazar Berman declared, amounted to “a rejection of Netanyahu’s unsuccessful lobbying against pausing or ending the war yet.”

Spiteful media

He also notes that soon after the cease-fire was announced, “Netanyahu’s office conceded in a statement released only in English that ‘Israel supports President Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks.’ ”

Although neither leader is above criticism, the drumbeat of nasty charges in both countries strikes me as the bitter residue of sour political grapes.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is among those gatekeeping poohbas who hates both men. It’s a feeling he doesn’t hide, as when he recently said that a West Bank incident was “Just another day of the Netanyahu government playing President Trump for a fool.”

The reports are fueled in part by an element of naivete about inevitable disagreements in complex war-time alliances, even the most successful ones. FDR and Churchill didn’t always see things the same way, and both had trouble with Stalin, yet the three worked together long enough to defeat Hitler and Nazism.

Follow The Post’s coverage on the latest in the war with Iran:

For their part, Trump and Netanyahu were routinely scorned by their nations’ legacy media long before the current conflict. One effect of the bias is that inconvenient facts that undermine the criticism are ignored.

Regarding Trump, for example, the claim that he was dragged into a war he didn’t want by Israel carries more than a faint smell of “blame the Jews.”

But the charge also fails to account for the president’s long-standing declaration that he would do whatever was necessary to make sure Iran never got a nuclear weapon.

It was a mainstay of his three presidential campaigns and a policy of both White House terms.

In 2016, he campaigned against Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, which he correctly viewed as too generous, and unlikely to prevent the mullahs from getting nukes, building missiles and financing terrorism.

He withdrew from the pact in 2018, and two years later ordered the attack that wiped out Iran’s terror mastermind, Gen. Qasem Soleimani. The moves showed that, unlike Obama, he would back up his red lines with action.

Couldn’t be clearer

Still, soon after his second term began, Trump wrote a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and said publicly, “We’re down to final strokes with Iran . . . Can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”

In a TV interview, he described his approach as, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran. They’re great people.”

The ayatollah blew him off, so Trump again took action. He joined Israel in its 12-day war against Iran last year, but limited America’s role to dropping bunker-buster bombs on three underground nuclear facilities.

Earlier this year, Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner began a new round of negotiations with Iranian representatives. Although there was some happy talk about early progress, the third and final meeting showed the Iranians were not serious about a meaningful agreement.

Witkoff told Sean Hannity that the ayatollah’s representatives opened by asserting an “inalienable right to enrich” nuclear fuel to weapons-grade levels.

“They said to us, directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% (enrichment), and they’re aware that they could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was the beginning of their negotiating stance,” Witkoff added.

The collapse of the talks led Trump to say, for the first time, that “regime change” might be necessary. He had amassed military might in the region, but said he hoped he wouldn’t need to use it.

It was now clear a deal could not be reached, so days after the talks broke down, he gave the go order for Operation Epic Fury.

Here we are, two months later, and despite the massive onslaught it has endured, Iran has again refused to enter into serious negotiations, which was the whole point of the cease-fire.

“Nobody knows who is in charge, including them,” Trump said Saturday after canceling plans for Witkoff and Kushner to leave for Pakistan, which was to broker a meeting. “If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” he told The Post.

Netanyahu’s lot is further complicated by Israel’s need to stop Hezbollah’s attacks from Lebanon. He did not want the Iranian cease-fire to cover the Lebanese front, but Trump and Iran both insisted it would.

Trump even said he barred Israel from further bombing in Lebanon, declaring on social media that “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!”

Latest whopper

Some saw the statement as humiliating for Netanyahu, but better that than lose Trump’s cooperation in the campaign against Iran.

Unlike the prime minister, his critics tend to forget that Israel is the junior partner in the mighty alliance.

Also, there is no evidence that Trump doesn’t share Israel’s desire to defang Hezbollah as well as Iran.

Indeed, despite a Lebanese law against direct dealing with Israel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brokered a White House meeting of the two countries, but optimism remains in short supply.

The key fact is that the Lebanese government is too weak, politically and militarily, to disarm the Iranian proxy. Any effort to do so could lead to a Lebanese civil war, yet Israel cannot accept the status quo.

To that end, Trump announced after another meeting between the two governments Thursday that the cease-fire between them would be extended for three more weeks, until May 17.

Media reports say Israelis living near the Lebanese border were enraged, with a local headline declaring that Netanyahu was being “held hostage by Trump.”

And the absurd drum beat goes on.