Michael Young
23.3K posts
@BeirutCalling
Senior editor, Carnegie Middle East Center. Author of The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle (Simon & Schuster 2010).
For generations, the villages of Debel, Ain Ebel, Rmeich and Qaouzah have stood firm on a fragile border. Discover their inhabitants' incredible attachment to their land in this article on the Lebanese Without Frontiers Substack: lebanesewithoutfrontiers.substack.com/p/four-villages
If it is perceived in the region that a deal with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq. A deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control the Strait in the future will put Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shia militias in Iraq on steroids.
🚨🇮🇱🇱🇧The draft MOU also makes clear that the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon would end 🚨🇮🇱🇱🇧Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed concern about that condition during a phone call with Trump on Saturday, an Israeli official said. He also expressed concerns about other aspects of the deal, but made his case in a respectful and deferential way, a U.S. official said 🚨🇮🇱🇱🇧The U.S. official said it would not be a "one-sided ceasefire" and if Hezbollah tried to rearm or instigate attacks, Israel would be allowed to take action to prevent it. "If Hezbollah behaves, Israel will behave", the official said 🚨🇮🇱🇱🇧"Bibi has his domestic considerations, but Trump has the interests of the U.S. and the global economy to think about," the U.S. official said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname
If in fact as a result of these negotiations to end the Iranian conflict, our Arab and Muslim allies in the region agreed to join the Abraham Accords, it would make this agreement one of the most consequential in the history of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan joining the Abraham Accords would be beyond transformative for the region and world. It is a brilliant move by President Trump. To Saudi Arabia and others: Now is the time to be bold for the future of a new Middle East. I expect, as President Trump has suggested, you will in fact join the Abraham Accords effectively ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. If you refuse to go down this path as suggested by President Trump, it will have severe repercussions for our future relationships and make this peace proposal unacceptable. Further, it would be seen by history as a major miscalculation. President Trump: Stick to your guns in getting a good deal with Iran. Equally important, stick to your guns in insisting Saudi Arabia and others join the Abraham Accords as part of these negotiations. Again, this is a brilliant proposal by President Trump.
According to my sources, the draft proposal that’s supposed to be finalised include: -End of war on all fronts including Lebanon -Freeing several billion dollars of Iran's blocked funds -Lifting the U.S. naval blockade and opening the strait of Hormuz -Withdrawal of American forces from the immediate vicinity of Iran After this, the parties will have 30 days to agree on the nuclear issue. These 30 days can be extended by mutual agreement. During these thirty days, passage will be facilitated through the strait. According to Iran, management of the Strait of Hormuz will be an Iranian-Omani issue, and is being negotiated with Muscat.
NEW: The US has warned Japan that delivery of 400 Tomahawk missiles could be delayed by up to two years after US stockpiles were depleted during the Iran war. Tokyo had planned to receive the missiles by 2028 as part of its China deterrence strategy, but the Pentagon is now prioritising replenishing its own inventories. Source: FT
Imagine achieving all of this on the battlefield only to surrender it at the negotiating table. President Trump wants to be seen as a winner, not as the president who created the greatest leverage ever against Iran and then traded it away for a deal even worse than Obama’s.
President Trump is the ONLY one who could have gotten Iran — the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism — to the negotiating table. We are greatly encouraged to learn a PEACE DEAL in Iran is underway — and look forward to learning more about the specifics. Under President Trump’s leadership, our nation is stronger, more respected on the global stage, and safer than ever before.
It’s hard to overstate how deeply Netanyahu views this moment as a possible personal and political defeat. A U.S.–Iran agreement under Trump would be a major blow to him mainly diplomatically, but above all politically. For years, Netanyahu built his political identity around being “Mr. Iran,” the leader who insisted that only pressure, deterrence, and force could stop the Iranian regime. And now, after multiple rounds of operational successes but one resounding strategic failure, and after finally succeeding in drawing the United States into direct confrontation with Iran, he may be forced to accept an agreement that not only legitimizes the very regime he sought to weaken, but also exposes the collapse of his long-standing Iran doctrine. His approach was based on the belief that more pressure, more military power, and tighter coordination between Israel and the United States would eventually either force Iran into submission or destabilize the regime itself. Instead, the result has been a more radicalized, more resilient, and more dangerous Iran, one that even Washington now hesitates to confront militarily again. If this confrontation ends with an agreement, an even bigger strategic question emerges: what future American president would be willing to commit U.S. forces to another major Middle Eastern conflict after seeing the political and military costs of this one? Netanyahu had what may have been his greatest opportunity to prove his central strategic theory: that a close Israeli-American military partnership could fundamentally reshape Iran and perhaps even threaten the regime’s survival. By every indication, that assumption failed. Against this backdrop, reports of a tense conversation between Trump and Netanyahu become much easier to understand. They also help explain the extraordinary level of pressure now coming from Jerusalem, and the extent to which Netanyahu is trying to persuade, or pressure, the administration not to move toward a deal with Tehran. The bottom line is that a U.S.–Iran agreement would not only signal the failure of the military confrontation Netanyahu pushed for, but also the collapse of the broader strategic doctrine he has championed since entering Israeli politics, all on the eve of what could be the most critical election of his career. In that sense, the next Israel’s leadership need to learn the fundamental lessons of this war. More than ever, this conflict demonstrates the urgent need for Israel to develop a different long-term strategy for dealing with Iran and especially to understand the following: Israel’s confrontation with Iran will not bring normalization with the Arab world, nor will it resolve Israel’s most fundamental security challenges, first and foremost, the Palestinian issue. The belief that regime change in Iran would transform Israel’s position in the Middle East was always detached from reality. In fact, the consistent opposition of Gulf leaders and major Arab states to further escalation against Iran has demonstrated this repeatedly throughout the conflict. Israel will not be able to use the “Iran card” as a substitute for addressing the core political issues shaping the region. Anyone arguing that military confrontation with Iran alone can unlock normalization is mistaken and, more importantly, misleading others about the strategic reality of the Middle East. Because despite the undeniable tactical and operational achievements of the campaign, this failure may ultimately leave Israel facing a more dangerous strategic reality, one that has not fundamentally improved its position in the Middle East. #IranWar
