From Washington to Tehran, all eyes are on Lebanon.
That’s because the future of the Iran war – and the prospects for a deal to end it – could now hinge on what happens in Lebanon, where a secondary front in this regional war is taking center stage. That new reality is the result of Iran’s relentless efforts to link the fate of both conflicts, and of the increasingly diverging priorities of the US president and the Israeli prime minister.
The 12-hour exchange of fire between Israel and Iran had barely ended on Monday when Lebanon’s key role was brought to the fore once again.
In the same breath that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it would cease fire against Israel, it threatened to resume those strikes unless Israel halted its attacks on both Iran and Lebanon, where Tehran’s most powerful regional proxy, Hezbollah, is based.
“It is emphasized that should the aggressions and hostile acts continue — including in southern Lebanon — far more severe and crushing measures than before will be forthcoming,” Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, a key arm of the Revolutionary Guards, said in a statement Monday.
If Iran makes good on that threat, Israel and Iran could soon be back at war. Israel has already carried out multiple new airstrikes in southern Lebanon as top Israeli officials rejected Iran’s efforts to link the two fronts and vowed to intensify attacks on Hezbollah.
Iran isn’t just re-committing itself to that linkage, it appears to be doubling down on a strategy it has pursued since the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire in April.
The first days of that ceasefire were marred by disputes over whether it included Lebanon. Israel initially rejected efforts to compel it to stop its attacks on its northern neighbor, even as Iranian officials and Pakistani mediators maintained that Lebanon was part of the deal. It took a call from President Donald Trump to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling him to fall into line to prevent the ceasefire with Iran from collapsing.
It was the first indication – to Iran and the rest of the region – that Trump was not going to let Israel’s war against Hezbollah get in the way of a chance to end a war with Iran that has become economically and politically costly.
As the fire between Israel and Hezbollah intensified and Israel threatened to bomb Hezbollah targets in Beirut earlier this month, Iran vowed to suspend negotiations with the US if the Lebanese capital was struck.
Trump, once again fearing his diplomacy would be upended by Israel, compelled Netanyahu in an expletive-laden call to cancel Israel’s planned strikes in Beirut. Netanyahu ultimately obliged.
It was the splashiest evidence yet of Trump and Netanyahu’s diverging interests.
While Trump has been loath to resume the war with Iran, Netanyahu has privately dismissed the prospects of US-Iran diplomacy and pushed for a return to war.
Both men are set to face elections in the fall: the midterm elections for Trump and parliamentary elections for Netanyahu that will decide whether he remains prime minister… or not. With high gas prices in the US, the war has been a political drag on Trump, whereas unfulfilled war aims in Iran represent a serious threat to Netanyahu’s prospects.
Geopolitically, Israel also faces a far greater threat from an unvanquished – and perhaps even emboldened – Iran and Hezbollah, whereas US interests tilt more toward economic concerns stemming from Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran quickly capitalized on the rift last week. As Israel warned that Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel would trigger Israeli strikes in Beirut, Iran upped the ante once again, threatening to strike Israel in retaliation.
Israeli officials were undeterred, refusing to accept Iran’s new red line and determined to maintain their freedom to operate against Hezbollah as they see fit. Netanyahu – distrustful of the US’s diplomacy and raring for a return to war instead – had also just been handed a roadmap back to open conflict with Iran.
And so, when Hezbollah fired two rockets at northern Israel on Sunday morning – both of which were intercepted – Netanyahu approved the Beirut strikes and, within hours, Iran fired its first ballistic missiles at Israel since the April ceasefire took effect.
Trump was once again forced to intervene to try and prevent (unsuccessfully) and ultimately limit Israel’s retaliation against Iran, loath to see his diplomacy with Iran – which he once again insists is in the final stages – from being derailed.
It is a loop that is likely to continue repeating itself, with no end in sight to the conflict in Lebanon and Iran’s new red line on the table.
Diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon, which is aimed at disarming Hezbollah, stopping Israeli attacks on Lebanese soil and ultimately the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, remains entirely dependent on Hezbollah’s cooperation. The latest Israel-Lebanon agreement called for Hezbollah to cease its attacks on Israel and withdraw its militant forces from southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has rejected the deal, demanding the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanese territory.
In Islamabad, where multiple rounds of US-Iran talks have taken place, eyes are increasingly on Lebanon, too.
Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir, a key mediator to those talks, met Friday with the commander-in-chief of Lebanon’s beleaguered armed forces, which would be charged with disarming Hezbollah and ensuring its forces do not return to southern Lebanon.
Pakistani military officials would only say that the two men discussed “enhancing bilateral relations,” but a well-informed regional source said there is also “some discussion” about Pakistan’s military assisting the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon, the key Hezbollah stronghold.
It is a modest but telling acknowledgment from a key mediator that solving the puzzle of US-Iran diplomacy doesn’t just require piecing together an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s blocked financial assets.
Lebanon is a key piece of that puzzle, too.
Nic Robertson contributed to this report.
