The US and Iran have both said they will sign a memorandum of understanding to end months of hostilities, but its success or failure may ultimately depend on two regional players left out of the room.
Neither Israel nor the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah were represented in the talks that produced the draft, which was announced late Sunday and confirmed by US President Donald Trump and Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday.
Iranian officials do not doubt that Lebanon is under the agreement and that Israel must not only stop the war against Hezbollah, but also that the Israeli Defense Forces must withdraw from all areas south of Lebanon where they are now.
Ending the war in Lebanon is an integral part of the ceasefire agreement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday.
In response to a question from CBC News chief international correspondent Margaret Evans, who is based in Tehran, Baghaei said that the Iranian expectation is that the US will ensure that Israel complies.
“America must live up to its responsibility to prove that it is Zionist [Israel] will stop its war with Lebanon,” he said.
In his country’s first official statement on the US-Iran deal, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said his country will not be bound by the terms of the deal, and will not withdraw from southern Lebanon.
“The IDF will remain in security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza without a time limit,” he said in a statement.
French President Emmanuel Macron says the G7 military campaign to protect the Strait of Hormuz can be deployed quickly, but faces many challenges.
Katz noted Israel’s occupation of the area south of the Litani River, in Lebanon, where it destroyed homes and villages the IDF claimed were being used by Hezbollah, as “one of the IDF’s greatest successes in the war.”
Speaking on American television on Monday, US Vice President JD Vance appeared to suggest that Israel had no choice but to comply with the agreement.
“We certainly expect the Israelis to be part of this peace process,” Vance said.
Hezbollah, Iran-backed militias, and Israel have been locked in war for most of the past 40 years.
The militia, which derives its members and strength from the Shia communities of southern Lebanon and Beirut, joined Hamas in attacking Israel following its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
A successive ceasefire negotiated by mediators has been violated by both sides, with Israeli advances in southern Lebanon since late May.
‘Surge valve’
“In many ways, this is a drawbridge,” said Sajjan Gohel, director of global security at the Asia-Pacific Foundation and a visiting lecturer at the London School of Economics.
Gohel said the difference now is that Iran has successfully linked the war in Lebanon to the wider conflict in the Middle East.
“It has been looking at Lebanon … as an escalation valve where it can put direct pressure on the United States. And that creates uncertainty because Israel is not signing this ‘escalation bridge’ so it makes it difficult how this will continue,” Gohel told the CBC News Network.
Middle East veteran Janice Stein, founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, says the next day a deal began quietly in Lebanon – but who knows for how long.
“It is one of the main areas of ambiguity. Iran says that Lebanon is a group [to the deal]. Israel says it is not,” said Stein.
“I think the most important thing here is that the United States and Iran do not want to go back to war.”
For Trump, economists say the war has raised energy prices, fueled inflation and raised costs for Americans preparing to vote in the midterm elections.
Iranians who recently spoke to CBC News described a shattered economy with basic goods doubling or tripling in price since the war began.
Repeatedly during Monday’s meeting of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Baghaei raised the economic opportunities a deal with the United States could bring.
Iranian media reported that the country has more than $24 billion worth of assets frozen offshore and reopening the Strait of Hormuz would allow the country to start selling its oil to international customers again.
CBC’s Margaret Evans on the reaction to the Iran peace deal.
Baghaei also talked about easing years of crippling international sanctions, although that is one of the key points to be discussed in the next 60 days.
“Iran has emerged from the war weakened militarily, facing economic hardships greater than before the conflict,” the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, said in a summary statement that also warned.
“Without power does not mean without power,” he said.
The government of Lebanon, which was not part of the agreement, issued a statement on Monday on behalf of President Joseph Aoun, saying that “recognition of the stability and security of Lebanon” must be part of any lasting agreement in the region.
Aoun’s government has been trying to assert its sovereignty in the conflict by holding historic direct talks with Israel, and trying – mainly but unsuccessfully – to make Hezbollah terrorists surrender their weapons to the country’s army.
Many Lebanese people, especially Christians, Druze and Sunni Muslims, who make up about two-thirds of the Lebanese population, opposed the Shia-led Hezbollah, but even together they were too weak politically and militarily to dominate this terrorist group.
Israel has agreed in principle to return some small parts of southern Lebanon to its current holdings and allow the Lebanese army to take over, but details of how that would work were unclear.
Internal division
Inside Israel, Trump’s deal with Iran has been criticized by many media commentators as a sell-out that will only benefit the Islamic Republic.
Many Israelis, especially in northern Israel, agree to continue attacking Hezbollah and support the IDF’s takeover of southern Lebanon.
“For Israel, in one word, it’s a bad deal, in two words, a very bad deal,” former prime minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CBC News.
“We tried to make the wars very short, violent in the enemy’s territory and in the shortest possible time to translate success on the battlefield into sustainable … political results. Somehow we, our leaders, forgot these lessons,” he said.
Channel 12 commentator Amit Segal, who appears to be close to the Netanyahu government, also complained about Israel’s apparent tying of the deal in an online post on Monday.
Segal said the deal negotiated with Trump “leaves the door open for Iran to drag its feet in negotiations” at Israel’s expense, that it is time for Israel to “stand up to Trump” and that Netanyahu should not allow the US president to dictate Israeli policy.
The goals of the war have not been achieved
Israel and the United States jointly launched the current war against Iran on Feb. 28, directed the country’s top leadership, the installation of nuclear weapons and missile sites.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Iranian people to overthrow their leaders, as he said the war’s aims were to end Iran’s nuclear program and the threat of ballistic missiles to Israel and to destroy the network of participating militias, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Despite strategic contributions, those goals have not been achieved.
The deal leaves the Islamic State in place, the ballistic missile threat intact and Hezbollah weakened but still deadly. Even the status of Iran’s nuclear program is uncertain as the stockpile of enriched uranium will be part of the negotiations over the next 60 days.
Indeed, in an apparent statement of defiance, Iran has organized the funeral of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by US and Israeli missiles, on July 4, the same day the United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary.
Sajjan Gohel of the London School of Economics doubts that is a coincidence.
“It is possible that Iran is deliberately trying to show that it has been able to withstand this conflict, that it has been able to endure.e.”
