Lebanon is the Key

While it may have appeared to many that the war between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel was a sideshow to the United States-Israel war on Iran, it has always been a major factor and could now determine the success or failure of peace efforts between the U.S. and Iran. When Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the ceasefire on April 7, he specifically wrote that the agreement included an "immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon". However, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately claimed that the ceasefire wouldn't apply to Lebanon. Netanyahu was supported in his interpretation of the agreement by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and Vice President and reply guy JD Vance. Israel immediately launched one of its most devastating attacks on Lebanon in years, wiping out entire housing blocks in Beirut and killing over 300 people in strikes that lasted just a few minutes.

In the past 10 days, Israel has duplicated the tactics that it used in Gaza in Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces ordered the evacuation of over 1.2 million people from their homes in southern Lebanon. The Israelis attacked paramedics, United Nations peacekeeping forces, they destroyed entire villages, and bombed all the bridges crossing the Litani River. Israeli media sources reported that the Israeli plan was to destroy all Lebanese villages directly across the border from Israel, not leaving a single building standing. Israel would also occupy all territory up to the Litani River and control all crossings over the river. Israel also planned to establish a buffer zone from which Lebanese residents would be prohibited in the 10-mile area between the Litani and Zahrani rivers. This would amount to the de facto annexation of a large part of southern Lebanon, something early Zionists had wanted to do from the time of David Ben-Gurion.

Iran, however, was not willing to abandon its Lebanese allies. Several Iranian leaders reacted by threatening to end peace talks with the U.S. and restart the fighting. Trump was shaken enough to phone Netanyahu and ask him to scale back the attacks in order not to threaten the talks. While Netanyahu complied with Trump's request, Israeli politicians, including some from Netanyahu's own party, continued to demand annexation of southern Lebanon. For instance, Likud Party Comptroller Shai Galili argued that "Only the physical occupation of territory and expulsion of the Shiite population can provide real security."

The discord among Israelis highlighted the conundrum that Trump faces. He desperately wants a deal with Iran. Iran won't agree to anything unless the fighting is stopped in Lebanon. Netanyahu is facing tremendous domestic pressure to continue the fighting and has made multiple pledges to the Israeli public that he will not be able to keep if he stops fighting Hezbollah.

Trump attempted to arrange direct negotiations between Israel and the Lebanese government. However, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would not agree to talks unless there was a ceasefire. At one point, Trump thought that he had a telephone call set up between the two leaders, but Aoun refused to take it. Trump then had his own call with Aoun, followed by a separate call with Netanyahu. Trump apparently came away convinced that there had to be a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in order to make progress. He then simply imposed the ceasefire on Netanyahu.

Israel clearly did not want a ceasefire, and Netanyahu was doing everything he could to prevent one. In the hours before Netanyahu's call with Trump, Israel bombed Lebanon over 50 times, killing 16 people. Netanyahu's Culture Minister Miki Zohar stated that "Anyone who thinks the military campaign is over is wrong. The war is in full swing." Nevertheless, Trump posted on Truth Social that a 10-day ceasefire would begin in less than 6 hours.

This set off shockwaves in Israel, where the leaders are not used to being told what to do. As Israeli journalist Noga Tarnopolsky reported, "Not mincing words, @YinonMagal, a top Netanyahu media proxy, writes ‘Trump surrendered to Iran.’" Israel's Channel 13 opened its news broadcast by asking, "Could it be that Trump will just land an order on Netanyahu: Ceasefire and doesn't want to hear from you???? This hasn't happened before." The same channel later reported, "The ceasefire in Lebanon was imposed on Israel."

Netanyahu is required to submit agreements like that to implement a ceasefire to his cabinet. However, as Anshel Pfeffer, the correspondent for The Economist in Israel, wrote:

Trump forced Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon and didn’t even wait for him to inform cabinet. Half an hour has passed since Trump’s announcement and not a word yet from Jerusalem. Bibi still figuring out how to spin his latest Total Victory.

With the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in place, things appeared to commence quickly between the U.S. and Iran. Trump has posted a flurry of updates to Truth Social this morning. He first announced that Iran had reopened the Strait of Hormuz. He then wrote that Iran had agreed to give up nuclear material, though the details of this are not clear. In the same post, Trump said that "This deal is in no way subject to Lebanon" but that "Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A."

As best as I can tell, Trump and the Iranians have worked out the outlines of an agreement, but nothing has been finalized. Trump appears to be providing a face-saving gesture to Netanyahu by saying that a deal does not depend on Lebanon, though it clearly does. This is a total failure for Netanyahu. Tarnopolsky has repeatedly tweeted about how disastrous this situation is for the Israeli leader. She has written that "for Netanyahu this is terrible. He looks like a toady. He didn't dare bring this to the cabinet, knowing he'd lose the vote, which would have been binding, so he went rogue autocrat." She retweeted Omri Lavi, an Israeli political analyst, saying:

Even on a personal level, Netanyahu's failure is colossal. Israeli citizens went to sleep on February 27 knowing that Netanyahu had defeated Iran and Hezbollah, "you can't take that away from him." And then he initiated an unnecessary war with Iran and Hezbollah that exposed to all citizens what only a handful had said—that it's all a lie, no enemy was defeated, no threat was removed, everything will come back again.

In essence, Netanyahu promised Israeli citizens that the war he and Trump initiated would remove Iran and Hezbollah as threats. Now, both are still standing and still presenting potential threats. The question is whether Netanyahu will simply accept this failure or will try to do something about it. Given the political peril Netanyahu faces in Israel if this status quo prevails, smart money will be on Netanyahu finding a way to sabotage Trump's deal.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, "Israel has veto power over any U.S. peace agreement". All Netanyahu has to do is continue attacks against Lebanon, and Iran will either halt peace talks or further restrict traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Now, Netanyahu has been personally humiliated by Trump, forced to break promises to the Israeli people, antagonized his coalition partners, and lost his excuse to be excused from his ongoing corruption trial. Peace talks literally put Netanyahu in both political and legal jeopardy. He has every incentive to make sure Trump's deal with Iran is not successful.

Netanyahu has had a 10-day ceasefire forced upon him. But, he can easily ensure that a longer agreement is not reached and that fighting reignites at the end of the current halt. Alternatively, Netanyahu can provoke a confrontation with Hezbollah. When Hezbollah responds, Netanyahu can declare a need for self-defense. Trump may not like it, but Netanyahu must certainly expect that he can handle Trump, today's actions notwithstanding. The question then becomes who will win a test of wills, Trump or Netanyahu?

We have now reached an almost absurd situation in which the fate of the world's economy depends on the situation in southern Lebanon. If Israel halts its attacks, the Strait of Hormuz is likely to reopen, and the oil on which the world depends will flow. If the fighting continues, the strait will stay closed, and we may see a global recession. Moreover, what happens in southern Lebanon may depend almost entirely on the political calculations of Netanyahu.