sschueller
8 hours ago
Lebanon being part of the deal requirement by Iran is a brilliant tactical move. It tests how serious the US is in keeping up their end of the deal and it causes severe infighting internally in the US. Iran managed to cause conflict between two allies.
jjgreen
6 hours ago
Quite right. Prediction: Iran suspends talks (but keeps Hormuz open) whenever Israel attacks, Israel can't help itself, it keeps attacking, so in 60 days, no substantive discussions have occurred. So what does the US do then?
the_origami_fox
5 hours ago
> Israel can't help itself.
Israel invaded Lebanon and found massive amounts of tunnels and military equipment. Hezbollah itself has been very open with it amassing an arsenal on the Israeli border. The Israelis do not want this. They do not want Hezbollah to get their own Oct 7 date. They have acted military and also diplomatically with the Lebanese government on this issue.
The USA can exert incredible on pressure Israel but will not be able to change this. The US has limited control over Lebanon and has no control over Hezbollah. These are all third parties who did not sign the MoU.
The MoU should between the parties who signed it. The US should decouple the Hezbollah-Israel war from the Iranian one. As a starting point, there are 2000km between the Strait of Hormuz and the Israeli-Lebanon border.
sschueller
4 hours ago
> Israel invaded Lebanon and found massive amounts of tunnels and military equipment.
After Gaza I will need verified by third party evidence of this.
Also what business does Israel have to complain about another states tunnels and weapons? I don't agree with Israel having nuclear weapons, it doesn't give me the right to decide on my own to go into Israel and try to take them away.
throw378322
4 hours ago
This is in an area that had an international agreement for demilitarization - with UN peacekeepers that were supposed to prevent that.
Also, the invasion came after the north of Israel had been evacuated for more than a year due to constant rocket and missile attacks from that area into Israel.
The “third party” that was supposed to prevent that did absolutely nothing.
spwa4
3 hours ago
You might want to add that it was not just an international agreement for demilitarization, Hezbollah actually signed a treaty they were going to demilitarize and never did ...
UN never responded to anything, not even when Hezbollah started killing UN soldiers.
https://www.reuters.com/world/irish-soldier-killed-un-peacek...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/unifil-says-one-pe...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanon-pm-condemn...
All 4 were killed in relation to the planting of explosive devices on public roads. The two Indonesian UN soldiers drove into a IED set on a public road, and it killed them. The French soldier came under automatic weapons fire after an IED was triggered somehow (ie. it didn't hit their convoy). The Irish soldier was part of a convoy, the car he was in got lost, drove into a village where Hezbollah was installing weapons and was shot at by a crowd along with 3 other soldiers in the same vehicle. The 3 other Irish soldiers survived.
Lebanon convicted 6 people (all in relation the Irish UN soldier case). Video evidence was submitted for 5 of the 6 convicted where they identified themselves as hezbollah (you know those videos hezbollah, Iran and hamas post when one of their members gets killed? They record those ahead of time and someone obtained them and showed them to the court). No arrests were ever made, no other cases were ever brought.
Not a single one of the convicted ever turned up to court or ever saw a second inside a jail cell.
amalcon
an hour ago
> The US should decouple the Hezbollah-Israel war from the Iranian one.
Inclusion of Lebanon in the cease-fire is an Iranian condition, not an American one. Since Iran clearly has the leverage here, it's unclear what you expect the US to do to cause this decoupling.
archagon
12 minutes ago
What happens when Israel loses the US as an ally?
consumer451
4 hours ago
Realpolitik: the decisions being made in Israel must be tougher than ever right now. They are staring at the prospect of their greatest ally funding their greatest enemy.
From the outside, at this very moment, the adventure in Iran appears to have been a huge miscalculation.
Jamesbeam
2 hours ago
It's even better long term strategically for Iran.
They now know they can close the straight whenever they please and the mightiest military in the world is not able to open it back up.
The straight and the confidence in their ability to survive complete air dominance by two of the most sophisticated military forces in the world is Irans new A-Bomb.
Which is a complete disaster for Israel.
Israelis never need to forget two things before the next election, the Oct 7th atrocities were carried out by Hamas, and everyone who participated deserves to be hunted and killed with the same brutality they murdered and raped elderly and children with, but equally important, it was the Israeli PM who allowed this to happen by his inflated ego, creating an "impenetrable" high tech border with sensors and outposts that were beaten by a few caterpillars and hanggliders.
For Bibi not going to jail he has to keep his forever wars up so the people of Israel are distracted and not able to finally mourn the victims properly and asking the important question why did this happen in the first place and who needs to take full responsibility for it.
So Iran trapped the Israeli PM who thought he could control Trump and the narrative and they got completely outplayed by the Iranians.
Iran managed to get Bibi the Zelensky treatment and now the US President is publicly humiliating the Israeli PM into submission by letting trump ramble publicly about how weak, insane and isolated Bibi is.
So either Bibi becomes Trump's bitch and misses all of his war goals which will get him eaten alive by the Israelis asking themselves why they all suffered through this? Or he keeps whatever dignity is left in that old meat bag and can kiss his freedom and legacy goodbye.
Oh and lets not forget the US lost this war using AI. Which speaks a lot against using the technology in a military context. It produced a lot of noise / kills which did not translate into a better strategic outcome, more control or in the end winning the war.