Israel is very busy. It is escalating its war with Iran and Hezbollah and, for the first time in about five years, is even attacking Lebanese territory, according to foreign reports. However, preliminary signs suggest that the real nightmare awaiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is brewing not in Tehran or Beirut, but in Washington. There are hints that President Donald Trump is taking steps to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, under French mediation. This is bad news for Netanyahu — the worst he has ever received apart from the criminal charges he faces. The appeasing tones that have suddenly emerged from Trump’s mouth regarding Iran can morph into Israel’s ultimate horror scenario as described here in earlier articles: Iran can turn into a new North Korea. In fact, Trump could turn out to be a sort of demon who changes forms overnight, replacing his campaign against Iran with a sizzling love affair.

Israel does not collect intel on US territory or spy on its greatest friend of all; it learned its lesson from the Pollard affair. That doesn’t mean that Israel doesn’t try to understand American policy, analyze the administration’s moves and congressional influence or elaborate various theoretical scenarios for future American moves. Israel’s best brains are involved in these analyses that are very important to Israel’s national security. But today, the best of the analyzers is at a loss vis-a-vis reality. Evidently, it is harder to predict Trump’s moves than to understand the secret of creation.

Once upon a time, members of the Israeli intelligence used to say that the only thing they absolutely must know at any given moment is what is going on in the head of the neighboring Arab ruler: What is he thinking; what are his plans. Today in Israel, the focus is more on Trump’s head. Is it possible to predict his policies? Is he rational? Emotional? Impulsive? Is there some secret formula that would allow us to understand where he’s heading?

In the pre-Trump period, analysis of American policy was composed of quite a number of variables: the balance of power between the Senate and the House of Representatives; AIPAC influence; internal mapping of the president’s advisers and insiders according to their specific gravity; the president’s ideology and political considerations. Today, all these are gone with the wind. Trump is a completely different animal; nothing is final, nothing is predictable, if it’s logical it won’t happen and what happens isn’t always logical. And so forth.