The U.S.-brokered peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon might be one of the Trump administration’s great foreign policy achievements. Naturally, Iran is trying to sabotage it.
On June 26, the United States announced that it had brokered a trilateral framework with Lebanon and Israel in which the two Middle Eastern nations declared their “ambition to end conflict between them, ensure the sovereignty and security of both countries,” and “establish peaceful neighborly relations.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a cautiously optimistic note, calling the framework the “beginning of the beginning” and noting that there is still “a lot of work to be done.” The people of Lebanon, Rubio told reporters, “have suffered tremendously now for decades as a result of outside interference in their affairs,” a criticism that applies both to Iran and Syria.
The existence of the framework is a tremendous accomplishment in itself, separate from any later judgment about whether it was able to work.
Lebanon has hitherto refused to recognize Israel since the Jewish state was reborn in 1948. Lebanon had been a sovereign state only since 1943, meaning the tiny country has been at war with Israel for nearly all its existence. That war has been devastating to both nations.
In 1969, under pressure from Egypt’s ruler, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Lebanon signed the Cairo Agreement and permitted armed Palestinian groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization to operate in Lebanese territory.
The PLO used Lebanon as a launching pad for terrorist attacks on Israel. This led to a 15-year civil war in which 150,000 Lebanese people, roughly 4.5% of the population, were killed.
Israel was forced to conduct two major military incursions into Lebanon to root out PLO terrorists. PLO head Yasser Arafat and his henchmen fled to Tunis, but another terrorist group, Hezbollah, soon took their place.
Hezbollah claims to be fighting to restore Lebanese sovereignty and expel “foreign invaders.” But it itself is a foreign invader, a terrorist organization created, funded, and trained by jihadi Iran.
Hezbollah continued where the PLO left off, using Lebanon for attacks on Israel and elsewhere, and eventually, this consumed what remained of the country’s sovereignty.
Contrary to its pretensions, after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah did not set down its arms and did not leave.
Instead, it amassed an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles and became what Richard Armitage, a U.S. deputy secretary of state, once called the “A-Team” of Islamist terrorism.
United Nations Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701 call for Hezbollah to be disbanded. But the Lebanese government and the international community lacked the power and the will to enforce them. Israel has had to fight Hezbollah for decades, at great cost to the Lebanese and Israeli people alike.
The trilateral framework represents the best chance in decades to free Lebanon from its long subjugation by terrorists and finally bring peace. It is a direct threat to the Islamic Republic’s imperial ambitions.
For this reason, Hezbollah and its allies have vowed to oppose it. Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, has called the agreement “null and void” and sworn that it “will not be adopted and it will not be implemented.”
But the greatest threat to peace between Israel and Lebanon is not just Iran and its proxies. It could be a giveaway to Tehran.
The trilateral framework runs counter to the Trump administration’s recent memorandum of understanding with Iran. The MOU includes provisions that will waive oil sanctions, thereby enriching and empowering the regime.
In effect, the U.S. is helping fund Iran’s imperial ambitions in Lebanon. For its part, Tehran is clear that it intends to preserve its crown jewel. The Iranian regime made preserving its interests in Lebanon the centerpiece of negotiations with the U.S.
The MOU, to which America’s wartime ally Israel was not a party, calls for a “ceasefire” in Lebanon. Some in the Trump administration have also called for Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon, as it did in 2000.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has found extensive terrorist tunnels in the area, some of which reach depths of 95 feet underground and are located underneath mosques and villages.
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An Israeli military spokesman said the tunnels featured reinforced steel doors and were built over the course of a decade with Iranian money. They could be used to launch drones and stage additional Oct. 7, 2023-style attacks.
Giving Iran more money is a guarantee of more war. It would again end hope for a Lebanon free from foreign control.