Are US and Israel aligned on Iran war? Deciphering Trump's post after gas field attacks

US President Donald Trump has issued a typically strongly worded statement in the wake of attacks on a major gas field shared by Iran and Qatar on Wednesday.

Israel hit Iran's South Pars - part of the world's largest natural gas field – and Tehran retaliated by striking an energy complex in Qatar. The attacks led to a spike in energy prices, and fuelled Trump's wrath.

On his Truth Social media platform, Trump threatened Iran again and said he didn't know about Israel's plans for the attack.

So what does the language used by the US president tell us about the course of the war and the extent to which the US and Israel are aligned on its strategy and goals?

The president says the US "knew nothing about this particular attack".

This flies in the face of multiple newspaper reports in Israel in the aftermath of the attack.

The attack "was co-ordinated in advance with the United States and… agreed upon between Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and US President Trump," the centrist paper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

Right-wing paper Israel Hayom goes further, saying "President Trump discussed the upcoming Israeli strike in [Iran's coastal city of] Asaluyeh with leaders of three Persian Gulf states over the weekend".

As is often the case with the president's assertions, it is not easy to know where the truth lies.

His choice of words to describe the Israeli attack is also telling. "Out of anger," he says, Israel "violently lashed out" against the gas field. This is the sort of language used to describe some of Iran's wilder retaliations - not a carefully considered military operation by a close ally.

Is Trump suggesting that Israel acted unwisely?

The president's use of capitals is notorious, but in this lengthy post, he resorts to all caps just once.