Israel’s Lebanon strikes challenge Trump’s Iran talks amid Hezbollah’s defiance

Israel’s intensified military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon is unlikely to derail US-Iran peace talks and will continue until the group is substantially weakened, according to analysts. A simultaneous end to hostilities in the Gulf and Lebanon is a core demand of Tehran, but the strikes launched on Tuesday show Israel’s lack of intention to honour any such agreement. The US also backed the latest attack, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing it as Israel’s “right to self-defence” against Hezbollah’s drone campaign. While US President Donald Trump is pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to torpedo peace discussions, the Israeli leader will not back down, according to Kenneth Katzman, a senior Middle East fellow at The Soufan Centre think tank in New York. “Mr Trump, no matter what he agrees with Iran, will not be able to compel Mr Netanyahu or his successor to allow Hezbollah to regain strength in Lebanon,” Katzman said. Netanyahu and the Israeli government “do not consider themselves bound by that, and they view Hezbollah as a threat that needs to be continued to be weakened”, he said. As diplomatic efforts to end the US-Israeli war on Iran gather pace, Netanyahu “may feel compelled to act sooner rather than later” if a deal with Tehran requires a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to Nir T. Boms, a research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Centre. Katzman said Israel had long viewed Hezbollah as a force that cannot be contained through military deterrence, and like Iran, “you need to defeat them decisively so that they can’t fight any more”. “Hezbollah is very much tied to resistance culture and ideology. They do go down fighting, just as we see the Iranian regime take that same stance,” he said. He added that Hezbollah’s social base among Lebanon’s Shia Muslims made it “risky and costly” for the government to confront the group. That tension sharpened on Monday when Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem demanded the resignation of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s government for failing to protect national sovereignty and imposing an unenforceable ban on the movement’s military wing, declaring that “the people have the right to go on to the streets and to bring down the government”. Rubio called the remarks “reckless” and accused Hezbollah of “actively trying to drag Lebanon back into chaos and destruction”. The rebuke reflected Washington’s push to support and gradually strengthen Aoun’s government, which has held several rounds of US-backed talks with Israel in recent months. But Israel was more focused on destroying Hezbollah than deepening dialogue with Aoun because his government was “not in a position to tackle it significantly”, Boms said. “This is a deadlock which may push Lebanon to seek negotiation while Israel may stall it,” he said. Boms added that military “kinetics alone” would not solve the Hezbollah conundrum for Israel and “at some point, Lebanon will have to tackle Hezbollah if it wishes to find stability in its land”. Andreas Krieg, a Middle East political risk analyst and associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London, said Israel “faces a hard choice between accepting US pressure and preserving freedom of action against Hezbollah” should Washington and Tehran agree on de-escalation in Lebanon. Krieg said Israeli residents living near the northern border with Lebanon would “feel abandoned” if Hezbollah is not clearly disarmed or pushed back in a verifiable way. The issue has also dominated the campaign for Israel’s general election, which is due by October. At the same time, he said continued Israeli operations in Lebanon could create a “direct clash with Washington’s effort to stabilise the wider region”. Diplomatic isolation and the challenge of justifying to the Israeli electorate an end-state to the Iran war that “falls short of regime change, full nuclear dismantlement or permanent removal of the Iranian threat” are some of the hurdles Netanyahu’s administration needs to confront after the conflict ends, he said. According to Krieg, a war that ends through US-Iran compromise could leave Israel looking “less like the architect of regional strategy and more like a disruptive actor that Washington had to restrain”. He added that despite its military supremacy, Israel’s political room for manoeuvre could “narrow” as a result, making the country’s “deterrence problem” more complex. On the other hand, he said that “Iran may emerge battered but not broken, Hezbollah may survive with a resistance narrative and the Gulf states may become more cautious about visibly aligning with Israel”. Krieg said Israel could “win parts of the military campaign and still face a more difficult post-war environment” including less international patience, more pressure on the Palestinian issue and an Iran that has learned how to turn endurance, the Strait of Hormuz and diplomacy into strategic leverage.

Israel’s Lebanon strikes challenge Trump’s Iran talks amid Hezbollah’s defiance

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Israel’s offensive aimed at weakening the group complicates US-Iran peace efforts, analysts say

Israel’s offensive aimed at weakening the group complicates US-Iran peace efforts, analysts say