The popular premise that Donald Trump decided to go to war with Iran because Benjamin Netanyahu asked him to is a misleading distortion. Trump’s decision was the product of a 40-year personal grudge, a hard lesson learned from Kim Jong-un's nuclear immunity in Hanoi, and a cold-eyed calculation about China's cheap Iranian oil lifeline. Trump saw an opportunity to shatter the Iran-Russia-China-North Korea axis in a single blow and to remind the world that American power is by no means in decline. Netanyahu gave the door a push, but it was already wide open.