Hezbollah

The New York Knicks may have lost Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but President Trump was still in a somewhat buoyant mood. Negotiations with Iran were going swimmingly, Trump claimed to reporters as he was headed back to Washington, so much so that an agreement could be reached in two or three days.  Two days later, though, and a deal remains just as elusive today as it was last week and the week before that. In fact, not only is diplomacy apparently stuck, but the United States and Iran are increasingly taking shots at each other. The April 8 ceasefire is still in effect but resting on weaker foundations.

The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between the two enemies. While Hezbollah has now been shown to be much weaker than Israel, it nevertheless remains stronger than any internal faction in Lebanon, including the official Lebanese government.

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would also hit Iran. Venezuela has long served as a launchpad for Iranian operations to establish a foothold in South America.

It’s been almost a year since Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that arguably held more power in Lebanon than the government itself, signed a ceasefire to end a ferocious two-month long war. The deal couldn’t have come at a better time; thousands of Israeli air and artillery strikes had pulverized southern Lebanon, Hezbollah’s traditional base of operations, leading to a displacement crisis and killing close to 4,000 Lebanese. Whole swaths of northern Israel had been vacated due to Hezbollah missile attacks, forcing the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to spend money on tens of thousands of civilians bunking in hotel rooms. But the agreement is wearing thin. The ceasefire is really a ceasefire in name only. Will it hold?

When Donald Trump called on Iran’s Ayatollah to “surrender” during Israel’s recent war the word struck many as jarring – almost antiquated. No major global leader has used that language publicly since the unconditional surrenders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945.But Trump’s invocation, intentional or not and soon abandoned by his call for a “ceasefire,” points to a deeper issue: Are the rules that governed mid-20th century warfare still relevant in the 21st century? Why has “surrender” disappeared from the language of modern warfare? And what, exactly, do today’s ever-growing humanitarian laws offer nation-states forced to operate under them, in a world that looks nothing like the one left smoldering in 1945?

‘What is to stop it happening again?’ was the pertinent question put to me by a Lebanese friend this week as we discussed over a mezze the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Given what we know of the terms agreed between the combatants, the answer seems to be, ‘Not a lot.’ Generally, I am not one to pour cold water or see the glass half empty. But beyond welcoming a cessation in the brutal meeting out of death by bombardment on the civilians in both Lebanon and northern Israel, it is hard to see the ceasefire agreement as sustainable in the long term.

If the leaks and briefings are to be believed, Israel is getting ready to end its war in Lebanon. With the US pushing hard, and after a successful military campaign, reports say that Israeli leaders are looking to make a deal. Lebanese Hezbollah joined Hama’s war against Israel on 8 October, 2023; around 100,000 Israeli civilians have evacuated the border area. Almost immediately after Israeli troops moved into the Gaza Strip, determined to oust Hamas and release the hostages captured on 7 October, there were negotiations, brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the USA, to try and reach some kind of deal that would free the hostages and end the war. Apart from a brief ceasefire in December, that deal is still being unsuccessfully negotiated today.