Did President Donald Trump potentially avert the Third World War last week by saying no to Israel? According to a report Thursday, Trump "waved off" demands from Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US support an airstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Trump reacted quickly to the story, suggesting he hadn't waved off Israel so much as he said, "I'm not in a rush to do it."

Let's hope he is never in a rush to do it. The reason for his hesitation? Some people in the Trump cabinet would rather not plunge the world into a war over a persistent Israeli demand that they remain the sole power in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. That group includes Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

There is no evidence that Iran has built a nuclear bomb, though. That remains a concern, but so does the risk of global war.

An unprovoked attack on Iran by Israel and the US would almost certainly lead to grave consequences in the region. Iran has a loose defense agreement with Russia, and it is unlikely that they and the Arab world will stand by and watch Israel act with impunity even if it manages to harness the might of the United States military.

Col. (Ret'd) Douglas Macgregor, the CEO of Our Country Our Choice and a former senior advisor in the first Trump administration, talked about Trump's less than unequivocal decision on Redacted Thursday. He first gained widespread popularity for his common sense commentary when he appeared on Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tonight to criticize NATO's insistence on funding and arming Ukraine in its war against Russia, arguing that the escalating involvement of NATO arms, personnel, and intelligence in the conflict was almost certainly leading to a clash with Russia.

"Well, let's put it this way. I think the drums are still beating for war, but not as loudly as before. Keep in mind that Donald Trump is someone who is not interested in going to war with anyone for any reason. It's just not what he wants to do. He is smart enough to know that wars have a bad habit of destroying presidencies. Now, can we escape this trap that he finds himself in? He is trapped, and the trap was set for him long before he was elected. You saw that at the convention when they displayed the Israeli flag and above it, it said, Israel First."

Macgregor argued that Trump is effectively surrounded by pro-war Republicans – neocons as they are known – and under extreme pressure to insert the United States into another foreign war that will almost certainly consume his presidency and thwart his domestic agenda. You will recall that Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. That may have been a laughable objective, but at least it indicated that Trump wanted to stop the war and the flow of billions of dollars into the black hole of Kyiv.

Macgregor noted that the hawks in Trump's administration are even more anxious to get a war going in the Middle East and have been pining to attack Iran for decades. He said the President's force was probably blocking the conflict from exploding.

"I think this is Donald Trump more than anything else. He is just not comfortable with the whole idea of going to war. It's not what he wants to do. Now, I don't know if he can withstand the tremendous pressure brought against him to do something. I mean, this is also true from the Hill. People on the Hill have been part of this war party with Iran for more than two decades. It's not just the inner circle. And then, of course, the people that paid for the White House, and they are very much interested in greater Israel as the project and the destruction of everyone and anyone in the region who they see as either a real or potential opponent of Israel. So I don't think we're out of the woods yet, but we can certainly take a breather and be grateful for Donald Trump's instincts to this stage."

When was the last President helped by getting the US into a foreign war? As Macgregor pointed out, you can't think of one example. "I don't think FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] was helped because he died at an opportune time. Had he lived longer, I think the truth about Pearl Harbor would have come out … [With] Lincoln, the war killed him one way or another. I think the only President who seems to have profited from it is Teddy Roosevelt. And, of course, he fought in the Spanish-American War, but he certainly profited from his service. Americans liked him, liked what he did, and thought highly of it … Everybody else, Woodrow Wilson, was destroyed by it. FDR's whole domestic program was destroyed, and then he died … Eisenhower was smart enough to recognize that Korea was a dead end, and he ended it as quickly as he could on the best terms he could get. Everybody else, Vietnam and so forth, went under. Now, I guess you could argue that Desert Storm did not harm George W Bush, but it doesn't seem to have helped you much either."

The flames of war are easy to ignite but difficult to extinguish. A president's popularity might be enhanced at the beginning of the fighting as Americans naturally enjoy a rush of patriotism, but as the civilian losses mount overseas, the body bags continue to come home; wars inevitably turn ugly very quickly, especially when there is no end in sight. Of course, the United States cannot just retreat from the conflict; that would be an admission of defeat. So, the carnage can go on for a decade or more, as it did with Afghanistan. And the war eventually overwhelms everything a president is trying to achieve on the domestic front. Trump is making real progress on the war against illegal immigration and the government. He can't fight crime, secure the southern border, have a global trade war, and keep saying "how high" every time Netanyahu tells him to jump.

Have we learned nothing from the twentieth-century wars when alliance systems ensured that war seemed appropriate and inevitable to resolve tensions? The First World War – probably the most stupid and unnecessary slaughter in world history – was supposed to be over in a few months but ultimately brought down three royal houses, bankrupted the British Empire, and created the conditions necessary for the triumph of Bolshevism in Russia.

Vietnam began as President Lyndon Johnson's war but soon became President Richard Nixon's after it destroyed Johnson's presidency. A war in the Middle East would be Trump's war, and it would ruin his plans to Make America Great Again.

Trump must remain a voice of reason in a room full of hysteria. Remember, it's America First, and the best favor he can do for Israel is to prevent it from starting a war that might destroy Iran but would also bring destruction upon the Jewish state and perhaps the obliteration of civilization itself.