Trump says that he will allow Israel to attack Iran once again to strike its ballistic missiles.

But what exactly does that mean? Will the US be involved in the actual strikes? Will it "limit" its involvement to shooting down Iran's retaliatory missiles?

If the former, Trump is not just "allowing" Israel to strike; the US will actually be at war with Iran. This would be a betrayal of his promise to his base to keep the US out of wars (he has, of course, violated that already).

Moreover, unlike the nuclear program, which was a small number of known facilities, the missile program is spread throughout the country in a large number of hidden facilities, many of them probably unknown to the US/Israel.

Thus, Trump will likely not be able to frame this as mere "military action" rather than war. Nor will he likely be able to negotiate with Tehran a limited Iranian response since the missiles are Iran's last line of defense - the last leg of its deterrence.

Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with the US, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford do so in this scenario. Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at US targets.

Even if Trump opts to "only" support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war - which is the position Biden took - it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the US is lessening the cost for Israel to do so.

The cost of the US is great even in this scenario. The US consumed 25% of its THAAD interceptors in the course of 12 days this past summer - for Israel's war of choice in a region four American Presidents have declared no longer is vital to US national security.

As I wrote last week, every time Trump caves to Netanyahu and agrees to another war, it only prompts Israel to come back to Trump after a few months with another war plan for Americans to give their blood and tax dollars to.

This will go on endlessly until Trump decides to end it.

Trump's answer below suggests, however, that Trump has allowed Netanyahu to call the shots once more...