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The entire region finds itself today before great transformations that are redrawing the political and military balances and equations. The war that erupted between America and Israel on one hand, and Iran and Hezbolla on the other, cannot be reduced to a passing confrontation or a limited skirmish, but constitutes a pivotal event whose profound repercussions will be felt across all states, and singularly in Lebanon, which finds itself once again at the heart of the storm. Experience has repeatedly demonstrated that great wars do not stop at the borders of the belligerent states, and that their consequences spread to fragile and torn entities, to states incapable of consolidating their sovereignty and of concentrating their decision-making power within their legitimate institutions. It is for this reason that maintaining Lebanon bound to regional axes and leaving it as an open arena for the conflicts of others places the Lebanese before existential dangers that it would be unwise to underestimate. The world today follows closely the American-Iranian negotiations and the political, security and military reconfigurations they might engender. But the real danger lies in the fact that Lebanon ranks among the countries most exposed to paying the price, due to the persistence of weapons that escape the authority of the State, and the insistence of certain forces on keeping the country within the orbit of a regional project that transcends the interests of the Lebanese, their homeland and their State. The region has truly entered a new phase, one in which the notions of war and peace are being redefined, new frontiers of influence are being traced, and the roles of states and armed groups are being redistributed. In this context, it becomes clear that any ceasefire between America and Iran would not be a passing conjunctural detail, but the prelude to a new political phase whose effects would inevitably reverberate across all the region’s arenas, Lebanon foremost among them. For it falls to America to impose on Iran the dismantling of its armed proxies and the cessation of any transfer of weapons and funds to any faction in the region, and most particularly to Hezbolla. To bet on the perpetuation of the status quo, or on the possibility of Lebanon remaining outside the trajectory of the coming transformations, would be a wager at once mistaken and dangerous. The international community and the Arab states are increasingly convinced that regional stability cannot be achieved in a context where states persist that are incapable of controlling their sovereign decisions, nor as long as the phenomenon of parallel armies and armed organizations operating outside all legality endures. The Lebanese president’s recent address constituted a remarkable moment in his treatment of the question of direct negotiation and of war and peace, when he affirmed clearly that any ceasefire decision is a sovereign decision that belongs to the Lebanese State alone, and to no other party whatsoever. He reaffirmed likewise, in terms that admit of no ambiguity, that no one has the right to speak in the name of Lebanon save the Lebanese State and its constitutional institutions. This position expresses the very essence of the idea of the State and the most elementary principles of national sovereignty. For Lebanon cannot endure as a State if the decision of war and peace remains outside its legitimate institutions, nor if certain forces persist in presenting themselves as the effective authority above the State, above the Constitution and above the will of the Lebanese people. It is regrettable that some continue to treat Lebanon as an open arena in the service of regional projects, while what the country needs today is to restore the principle of one State, one authority and one decision. For Lebanon is not protected by slogans, nor by political outbidding, nor by speeches of accusation and incitement, but by the advent of a real State, capable of protecting its borders, its people and its national interests. It is now evident that any new military adventure would be paid for solely by the Lebanese, and that any tethering of Lebanon’s fate to the Iranian-Israeli confrontation (via Hezbolla) would inexorably lead the country toward yet greater isolation, collapse and destruction. Similarly, any regional and international agreements or arrangements to come will impose new realities on the region, and Lebanon will be incapable of protecting itself or defending its interests so long as it remains unable to build a genuine State, sole holder of the right to use force, of the monopoly of arms and of the decision of war and peace. The Lebanese State finds itself today before a historical test: either it fully recovers its role as the sole reference for all the Lebanese, or Lebanon remains a profaned arena whose people pays the price of others’ conflicts. The coming phase demands the highest degree of national responsibility, for the region is transforming rapidly and the settlements to come will impose new equations. It is for this reason that Lebanon’s salvation begins with a return to the Constitution, to the logic of the State, to respect for Lebanese and international legality, and to the building of a State genuinely capable of protecting its people, its territory and its sovereignty. The Lebanese deserve a State that protects them and not a State whose territory is instrumentalized to settle scores. They deserve a future founded on stability, sovereignty and prosperity, and not on perpetual wars, divisions and dependence on the outside. In this pivotal moment, attachment to the State ceases to be a mere political choice and becomes the very condition for Lebanon’s survival. Lebanon’s protection begins above all with its disengagement from the axes of conflict, with the reaffirmation of its Arab identity, with the consecration of its neutrality with regard to the wars of others, and with the establishment of the exclusive authority of the State over the entirety of Lebanese territory.

“Even if a preliminary agreement is reached, it will not alter Iran’s perception of America.” In just a few words, the Iranian news agency Tasnim – which reflects the positions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – indirectly pointed to the root cause of the existential crisis that has destabilized countries across the Levant and threatened several Gulf states for decades. The remark underscores a profound underlying problem: the divine ideological dimension that dictates the conduct of the mullahs’ regime, a dimension that some Western leaders consistently ignore – or at times fail to fully grasp. In practical terms, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman highlighted one manifestation of that deeper issue earlier this week: a strategy built on stalling, evasiveness and buying time in order to allow the Islamic Republic to acquire the military, security, political, institutional, economic and financial tools needed to prepare for its confrontation with Western powers. In recent weeks, more than one senior figure within Tehran’s ruling establishment has stressed that the regime has spent over 15 years preparing for such a war against the United States and Israel. Against that backdrop, the position voiced by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman becomes easier to understand. Speaking bluntly on Monday, May 25, he declared: “We are negotiating to put an end to the war, and we are not currently discussing nuclear issues (...); Iran reserves the right to choose the timing of its response to ‘ the enemy .’” Nothing could be clearer. This particularly explicit clarification brings us back to what President Donald Trump had underlined just days earlier in stark terms: “For 47 years (since Khomeini’s seizure of power in 1979), the Iranian regime has been leading us on, making us wait, killing our men (...), and brutally repressing popular uprisings (...).” This is not, in any sense, an imputation of intent. The nuclear file and uranium enrichment have been raised by the international community – not only by the United States – since the early 2000s. On July 31, 2006, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1696, “demanding the immediate suspension of uranium enrichment,” with Russia and China allowing the measure to pass without resorting to a veto. The Iranian authorities, however, did not comply with the UN demand. As a result, on December 23, 2006, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1737, imposing the first round of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. In vain… This was followed, again without vetoes from Russia or China, by three additional resolutions tightening the pressure: Resolution 1747 on March 24, 2007; Resolution 1803 on March 3, 2008; and Resolution 1929 on June 9, 2010. Nearly two decades later, the situation remains fundamentally unchanged. Today, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman argues that “talks” on the same nuclear issue – discussed since 2006 and even earlier – should now be postponed, with priority instead given to ending hostilities. This strategy of evasion should come as no surprise, especially since it has consistently been accompanied, over the years, by a permanent belligerent posture toward several Arab and Western countries, particularly the United States, as illustrated by the many terrorist operations allegedly commissioned by this regime, starting with the seizure and occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the 444-day hostage crisis in 1979. A long series of hostile acts followed from the early 1980s: the truck bomb attack that destroyed the U.S. embassy building in Ain Mreissé in April 1983; the twin deadly bombings of October 1983 in Beirut against the headquarters of the U.S. Marines and the barracks of French paratroopers of the Multinational Force; the attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in July 1994; the establishment of subversive cells in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Syria… These are only a few examples, to which must of course be added the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the political assassinations during the Cedar Revolution, the wars imposed on Lebanon, and, above all, the brutal repression of protest movements led by the Iranian people. Such conduct, extending over time and indifferent to both space and chronology, follows a very specific logic: that of a divinely inspired ideology, a messianic mission which the Revolutionary Guards believe they embody. It is this fundamentally irrational messianic dimension that is regrettably overlooked by some leaders, and which means that any attempt to resolve the current crisis through a purely Cartesian approach, a falsely “diplomatic” one, one that takes into account only short-term economic interests or narrow national reflexes, will merely postpone the problem and sow the seeds of a new war, a new existential crisis, even more serious than the previous ones. Negotiating a “solution” with a faction whose “divine” ideological behavior is rooted in irrationality, whose ongoing actions are in no way constrained by moral, ethical or humanitarian considerations, amounts to a vast deception, a fundamentally misleading approach. In such a context, it becomes imperative to strike at the source of the evil, to tear out its deep roots. Any other outcome to the crisis would amount to nothing more than dangerous smoke and mirrors…

In this same day of the year 1948 there came to pass what we have given the name of Nakba… then elapsed a time when Palestine was no more than a worn record spinning on repeat in the Arab pavement cafés… then came a time when Palestine became once more the intonation of a people that had recovered its voice and felt its muscles reawaken… then came a time when the Palestinian cause became a spreading oil slick upon the waters and a gaping well drained of its substance, around which all the buckets jostled in an endless tumult… then came a moment when fear arose for the Palestinian body of a new wandering, more terrifying still than the first, for the Palestinian mother had become like a cat bearing her kittens from one place to nowhere… The ages succeeded one another and dissolved into each other… until Palestine finally appeared upon its own land as an epic composition…… but a solo played upon living flesh!! It is in these singular formulations that Mohammad Hussein Chamseddine summarised his definition and approach to the commemoration of Nakba Day, at a conference held in Beirut under the title "From the Nakba to the State," in 2003, at the very hour when the Intifada was opening onto contradictory perspectives, torn between the advocates of peaceful struggle and the partisans of a return to the violence of arms. The alternative imposed itself between the strategy of a historical settlement with the State of Israel and the triumph of projects of violence and integral liberation, from the sea to the river, with the abolition of the Oslo Accords as its standard, a rallying cry so dear to the heart of the axis of resistance and its vanguard, the Hamas movement. More than two decades have elapsed for the commemoration of their independence and our Nakba to return, once more, while the world witnesses a madness without equivalent enveloping the Palestinian body in its own homeland and in several of the diaspora camps, in Syria and Lebanon. And the opacity of the international and regional moment, open to prospects that are perhaps not commensurate with what the Palestinian people aspires to in having its Nakba transform itself into a day of independence, continues to thicken. The Madness of the Dance The madness of the dance that wells from the seed of love places you before that Zorba of bereavement and tenderness, while the madness of the dance that bursts from the seed of hatred reveals itself with Ben Gvir and his ilk within the current Israeli government. In the time of Foreign Minister Abba Eban, a journalist had asked how they could boast of being a modern, democratic Zionist state when the Knesset received rabbis from an age long past. Abba Eban had smiled and replied that they deposited their cloaks on the threshold of the Knesset before going in to debate the policies of the State. But today, with Netanyahu and his so-called "secular" accomplices, it is the religious cloak they don to enter it. The madness of the dance that Ben Gvir practises with the "hilltop youth" inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, and over the heads of those abducted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Cyprus, has not yet reached its term, for what is being pursued far exceeds what has been accomplished since the October 7 operation and the war of extermination. The madness of the dance upon the seed of hatred is the gestural expression of a delusion of grandeur that invariably accompanies all those who claim to be invested by "God," the "Lord," or "Yahweh" with the mission of leading peoples across the land, upon the seas, and through the heavens. When Finance Minister Smotrich makes a show of his accomplishments by declaring that during his tenure he has silently led the revolution of radical change in the West Bank and that they have there erected a hundred colonies… in the cradle of their eternal biblical homeland (according to correspondent Hagit Rozinam for the Ba'shevaa site, press of 21/5), the cooperation between Smotrich and Colonies Minister Orit Strock has formed what she names a "pincer movement," whose ambition is to destroy the "Palestinian Authority" through economic strangulation, to extend the perimeter of direct colonial domination… to deny workers access to the Israeli labour market and to build a geographic continuity of settlements between Jerusalem and Hebron . This type of extremist government takes little heed of the reports that international institutions raise to document, with irrefutable figures, that the Israeli army has killed thousands of children , testimony retained by the International Court of Justice and upon which have been founded the rulings that visit infamy upon this criminal gang. Nor did they attend to the counsel that Henry Kissinger had lavished upon Rabin during the stone Intifada, while Rabin was crushing the bones of Palestinian youth: do what you will with the Palestinians, but behind the cameras, not before them . The delusion of grandeur of these ministers has reached such a pitch that they arrogate to themselves the right to dance upon the bodies of the living and the dead, on the public squares, in what resembles a blood-steeped and tenebrous ritual performed in the very face of the sun. Thus has Israeli Independence Day, the fifteenth of May each year, transformed itself into an occasion to give the repressed free rein without the slightest restraint, from the moment the destructive power of the State of Israel has reached a summit permitting it to efface the Palestinian Other and to proclaim without circumlocution the programme designed to achieve this end. This year, however, this festive ritual knew how to innovate, the settlers of the "hilltop youth" having taken for targets the children's schools, once the repertoire of "Bedouin" and "peasant" objectives had been exhausted. Perhaps they imagine themselves capable of occupying the future of children and forbidding its advent. It is one and the same day shared with those we call our cousins, the fifteenth of May each year, that is for them Independence Day and for us the day of the Nakba. It is there, perhaps, that reside the secret of the delusion of grandeur, the secret of the violent dance, and the secret of hatred, for the Other struck down by the Nakba continues to live! This fact lays bare a formidable equation between the strong and the weak, one that operates from the moment the weak persists in living under the sign of the Nakba and reminds the strong that his independence remains unfinished, a secret equation whose existence only the strong capable of healing himself can venture to confess. Our Nakba will thus continue to undermine their independence and to transform the celebration into a palliative designed to conceal the consciousness of a lack and an incompleteness, corrupting the festival to its very foundations, for no way out is conceivable without transcending the excess of power and resolving upon the historical reconciliation between two peoples inhabiting one land, endowed with equal rights. Two Walls This is not a matter here of the separation wall that encircled the West Bank, isolated the colonies, and swallowed 10% of its area, some 560 kilometres of the finest agricultural lands, with their water sources and their axes of global strategic control. Nor does it concern the wall known as the "Jerusalem Envelope," which isolates villages and towns from the neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and penetrates, in the literal sense of the word, farms, houses, and private properties, stretching over some 180 kilometres, for these two walls belong henceforth to the past and have been the subject of an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice concluding that their construction infringes international law. The two walls in question here are those the Israeli government intends to raise by seizing the zone known as E1 (East 1), to the east of the Arab city of Jerusalem, a historical territory of Bedouin tribes spanning 12 square kilometres, home to communities established on Mount Baba and separating the Adumim colony from the city of Jerusalem. This zone, the consuls of European states accompanied by their American counterpart have ceaselessly visited in order to prevent Israel from seizing it, not out of love for the Bedouin tribes, but because it would definitively sever the north of the West Bank from its south, and East Jerusalem from the Jordan Valley, that is to say from the Palestinian-Jordanian border, thus transforming the West Bank into isolated cantons, should the first colonial wall come to be built from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley over some 35 kilometres, by linking the settlement blocs and sealing every gap between them, making of the city of Jerusalem a city that reaches the frontiers of Jordan. As for the second wall, it is the one that would link Jerusalem through colonies to the city of Hebron, some 40 kilometres to the south, where anyone who travels by Palestinian bus observes that access to the highway reserved for settlers is forbidden to the indigenous populations, who are compelled to take old, winding roads reaching up to 70 kilometres, so as to guarantee the comfort of the Hebron settlers and the swiftness of their access to the capital. This zone E1 constitutes the pivot that assures the continuity of the first colonial wall toward the Jordan Valley and of the second toward the city of Hebron, and it is precisely this of which Smotrich boasts under what he has called the plan of radical change, elaborated in concert with Netanyahu. Until now, however, this zone remains silent and the bulldozers have not yet been set in motion; the efforts deployed by the National Authority with Washington and the states that exercise an influence over the Israeli government delay their mobilisation, as do the dissensions that have arisen within the government, leading to the prospect of new early parliamentary elections, thereby opening a propitious interval for preventing the execution of this project. It remains that for Israeli governments, suspending execution means only awaiting a more propitious moment, nothing more. That is how matters proceed there. The Forgotten The Special Envoy of the Peace Council, Nikolai Mladenov, has summoned the Hamas movement to surrender its weapons in order to be able to proceed with the application of the second clause of the Trump plan, but the Hamas leadership rejected this injunction on the grounds that the crux of the matter lay not in the arms, but in the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the entirety of the Gaza Strip. For its part, the Netanyahu government held fast to Mladenov's demand, pursuing its blockade policy and forbidding access of trucks to Gaza, while also blocking entry authorisations for members of the administrative commission into the Strip. Caught between the intransigence of Israel and the obstruction of Hamas, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk recorded in his new report, published by the press on the 19th of this month, that the acts carried out by Israel since the outbreak of war on 7 October constitute a flagrant violation of international law and are comparable to war crimes and crimes against humanity . Türk has further enjoined Israel to ensure that its soldiers commit no act of genocide, and that it take all the measures that impose themselves to prevent any incitement to genocide and to guarantee its punishment . Enough to plunge the Trump plan into paralysis over the question of arms, which blocks the entirety of the other avenues, only 80 trucks being admitted out of the 500 scheduled. In this scene, while the inhabitants are in their death throes there from a slow famine and clinical death, Mladenov did not address to President Trump the question that imposed itself, he who allowed Hamas to dig in with its weapons and concluded with its leaders, through the intermediary of his mediators and security services, arrangements authorising the movement to continue governing the western part of the Strip until further notice, in connection with the questions of constitution and financing of an international force. Thus does the forgotten people pay, with its very flesh, the price of unavowed bargaining, whose sole public expression remains that indirect formula from President Trump suggesting he is in no hurry to disarm Hamas. It would have better befitted Mr. Nikolai Mladenov to tell the truth to the forgotten.

On this Monday, May 25, the mood was a far cry from Saturday’s apparent enthusiasm over what had been described as an imminent regional breakthrough, driven by an Iranian-American statement of intent expected to kick-start a second round of negotiations between Washington and Tehran. To be sure, talks have picked up pace, with the various parties involved in mediation reporting progress. Yet, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details – and those details remain many. As of Monday, officials are still only speaking of a deal that “could be concluded in the coming days.” On Saturday, Washington and Tehran had presented it as almost imminent. Still, cautious optimism persists, at least on the surface. Tehran has officially acknowledged, through the spokesperson of its Foreign Ministry, that “conclusions on a large part of the issues under review” have been reached. However, these do not include the most critical matters. The latest indications suggest the deadlock centers on frozen Iranian assets and the nuclear file. In this case, the very core issue! In Doha, Iranian Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator in the Islamabad talks Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, along with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, held discussions on Monday with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on possible solutions to these two dossiers. According to Reuters, which reported the information, the talks also touched on the future of the Strait of Hormuz. The governor of Iran’s central bank joined the meeting for the part of the talks focused on a possible thawing of Iranian assets held abroad, frozen as a result of U.S. sanctions. For Tehran, which is facing severe financial and economic difficulties, this issue is a top priority. Iran wants part of these funds to be released before any agreement is reached and is calling for a clear mechanism to guarantee the unfreezing of the remaining assets, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim. Washington, for its part, has so far rejected this, arguing that any release of funds should be the result of a deal. Qatar is involved in the ongoing mediation alongside Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. At the end of his discussions, the Qatari prime minister contacted his Omani counterpart to explore ways of supporting reconciliation efforts, particularly to reduce the risk of escalation in the region. The initiative may be linked to the fact that Tehran is currently in talks with Muscat over a possible coordination scheme for imposing a transit fee in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran continues to support the measure, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf reiterated on Monday, describing it as “navigation maintenance fees.” It is, however, still rejected by the United States and by countries whose tankers and cargo ships pass through this maritime route under international law. Does this mean there is still a long way to go before any possible compromise is reached? Most likely, as while Tehran is showing signs of openness, it continues to avoid appearing as though it is yielding to U.S. pressure and seeks to preserve room for maneuver on both the nuclear issue and sanctions, as reflected in remarks by Ghalibaf and by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. The latter stated on Monday that “Tehran will not back down, as both the situation on the ground and the diplomatic process have shown.” Trump Softens Tone On the American side, following the backlash triggered by his forceful Saturday declaration of an “imminent deal,” deemed too accommodating by several Republican senators, President Donald Trump has sought to soften his remarks. On Monday, he posted on his Truth Social platform: “The deal will be excellent and meaningful, otherwise there will be no deal.” Trump stressed that any potential agreement “will not resemble the 2015 Vienna nuclear deal with Iran,” concluded under Barack Obama’s administration. He again raised the prospect of strikes in the event of failed mediation, as press reports pointed to alleged U.S. paramilitary activity in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also directly addressed Arab countries involved in the mediation process, insisting that in the event of a deal, they must join the Abraham Accords. Lebanon and Israeli Exasperation Lebanon remains a sticking point, with Tehran seeking to include it in a broader agreement with the United States. For Israel, such an option is out of the question – a position Trump appears to acknowledge, particularly as the Hezbollah issue is expected to be handled within direct talks between Beirut and Tel Aviv. A meeting, framed as part of a “security process,” is scheduled for May 29 at the Pentagon. According to various Israeli media outlets, Tel Aviv appears inclined to broaden the scope of its strikes in Lebanon in an effort to eliminate the drone threat posed by Hezbollah. The Axios website, for its part, reported that the Trump administration would support a large-scale military operation against the Shiite party. Late on Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the army to “crush” Hezbollah. On Monday, the Israeli army intensified its strikes in southern Lebanon, targeting several neighborhoods in the city of Tyre, a stronghold of Parliament Speaker and Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri, as well as the nearby Palestinian camp of Rashidieh and the Nabatiyeh region. At the same time, Hezbollah stepped up its attacks using explosive drones against Israeli soldiers stationed in southern Lebanon. One soldier was killed and several others were injured, according to the Israeli army, whose chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, called for a forceful response. He argued that Tel Aviv should carry out direct strikes on buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut in retaliation. This view was echoed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called for “a return to intensive warfare” and for “taking control” of the area stretching up to the Zahrani River, north of the Litani. In practice, late on Monday evening, all information coming out of Tel Aviv pointed to an imminent and rapid escalation against Hezbollah, with explicit backing from Washington.

CENTCOM's account of the war on Iran is impressive. The blanks it leaves are the ones that will matter. On 14 May 2026, the Commander of US Central Command stood before the Senate Armed Services Committee and described a war that, in his words, "rolled back 40 years of Iranian military investment" in 38 days. Admiral Charles Bradford Cooper II's account of Operation Epic Fury is impressive by any measure: 85 percent of Iran's ballistic-missile, drone, and naval-defence industrial base damaged or destroyed, 82 percent of its air-defence systems disabled, over 90 percent of its naval-mine stockpile eliminated, 161 vessels sunk across 16 classes, 1,450 strikes on weapons facilities and 2,000 more on command-and-control nodes. "Iran can no longer project power across the region," he concluded. Tactically, the claim is defensible. Strategically, it is a story with notable omissions. The testimony delivers an autopsy of Iran's conventional defeat with admirable precision, but says far less about the asymmetric toolkit that powered Tehran's regional expansion across four decades, and even less about how Washington intends to neutralise Iran's destabilising influence in the Middle East. In his statement, Cooper concedes that "we should expect Iran will try to reconstitute what it can, as fast as it can." History justifies the warning. After the June 2025 "12-day war," American and Israeli sources had already estimated that half of Iran's surface-to-surface missile arsenal and two-thirds of its launchers had been destroyed, alongside critical damage to Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. By February 2026, Iran was once again capable of wave attacks, meaning that much of what was counted as "destroyed" in 2025 had been either concealed beforehand or rebuilt in under nine months. Iran's missile self-sufficiency rests on shifting production, not just stockpiles, onto hidden infrastructure. The 85-percent figure does not tell us how much refers to irreplaceable capacity versus dual-use facilities that can be reconstituted. Israeli military assessments suggest Iran could return to its pre-war missile-production rate within twelve to twenty-four months once the bombing stops. The Asymmetric Playbook, Intact If conventional damage is reversible, Iran's asymmetric playbook is barely touched. Cooper asserts that "the supply chain from Tehran to the proxies has been broken," then immediately acknowledges that Iran "retains nuisance capability through harassment, low-end drone and rocket attacks, and residual proxy support." Hezbollah is the test case. Earlier this year, Israeli assessments put the organisation at roughly 15 percent of its pre-war stockpile of around 150,000 projectiles. It still resumed direct fire on northern Israel on 2 March 2026, two days after the combined US–Israeli strikes on Iran. As of December 2025, the US-chaired Cessation of Hostilities Supervisory Committee, also known as "the Mechanism", had judged that around 85 percent of disarmament tasks south of the Litani river were complete. Events since 2 March suggest re-armament is outpacing disarmament. Hezbollah redeployed several hundred elite operatives into the area within days, while anti-tank missiles, MANPADS, and rocket launchers had been pre-positioned in civilian infrastructure for exactly this contingency. Add to that Hezbollah's growing use of first-person-view drones, small, low-flying, radar-evading, assembled from commercial parts for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars apiece. These modern warfare gems can disable tanks, strike fortified positions, and target individual soldiers or civilians from anywhere within a few kilometres. Eliminating them entirely is practically impossible. A "degraded" Hezbollah retains the capacity for continuous, low-cost attrition and a security threat to Northern Israel. The same logic applies to Iran itself. Since March 2026, Tehran has launched missiles and drones against hydrocarbon infrastructure across the Gulf Cooperation Council and at commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Preventing this would require a sustained, integrated campaign of military and economic coercion led by Washington with regional and extra-regional partners, a configuration hardly achievable today. Strikingly, the policy framing has narrowed to match the military reality check. Until 2025, US officials identified three Iranian threats: nuclear, ballistic, and proxy forces. The current Administration's ask of Tehran has been narrowed to the nuclear programme and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that became a flashpoint as a consequence of the war, not its cause. CENTCOM quietly preserves the older triad in its testimony. The divergence between the negotiating agenda in Islamabad and the military commander's threat picture is itself a worrying contradiction. CENTCOM's three stated priorities — defending the homeland, deterring Iran, preserving advantage versus China — are organised around burden-shifting, through tools such as Foreign Military Sales reform, the Middle East Air Defense (MEAD) network and partner-led counter-drone work. The statement does not signal appetite for a follow-on war. It signals a posture designed to absorb a long, low-intensity confrontation. The triggers for re-escalation are identifiable (nuclear breakout, attack on US forces, interference with shipping) but none touches Iran's destabilising regional behaviour, a silence that effectively grants Tehran continued latitude through its proxies. This means that the burden of confronting Iran's nuisance capacity, by default, falls on Israel. An essentially identical doctrine is now applied by Israel in Gaza, southern Syria, and southern Lebanon. It sways from the failed Israeli-governed buffer zones of 1985–2000, but retains kill-zones in bordering countries, permanent freedom of military action across the region, in addition to indefinite "mowing the grass" airstrikes against deeper targets in Iran or its proxy hosts. Containment as Default Horizon CENTCOM's other large assumption is that MEAD, operationalised during Epic Fury, marks the beginning of a durable integrated multilateral regional security architecture rather than a one-off wartime initiative. In the CENTCOM statement, the performance metrics of the existing MEAD were genuinely historic with more than 6,000 attack drones and 1,500 ballistic missiles intercepted. According to Cooper, this would be "the largest integrated air-defense umbrella ever fielded on earth." Yet every previous regional security framework has collapsed for the same structural reasons, none of which have been resolved, such as intra-GCC rivalries, divergent foreign-policy orientations, and recalibration of threat perceptions following diplomatic openings with Tehran. Compounding this is an erosion of confidence in American willingness to absorb risk on partners' behalf. The 1990–91 benchmark — a 35-state coalition and half a million troops within months of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait — is no longer the reference point in Gulf capitals. They look instead at the muted US response to the 2019 strikes on Saudi Aramco, the abandonment of Kurdish partners, the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, and CENTCOM's own admission that "most countries have declined to participate in helping to reopen the Strait of Hormuz." The result is a hedging strategy the testimony does not acknowledge. Several GCC states have built parallel comprehensive partnerships with Beijing to acquire Chinese ballistic missiles, armed drones, and communications infrastructure, which impose concrete interoperability and intelligence-sharing limits on MEAD itself. The US and Israel have shown they can dismantle much of Iran's conventional military apparatus with remarkable speed and coordination. The very success of that operation exposes the limits of force against an adversary whose power has never depended on parity of technology or firepower, but on deceit, deniability, and the ability to translate limited capabilities into persistent political and psychological pressure. A containment-plus-burden-shifting posture signals a transition from problem-solving to risk management. That implies a phase of chronic instability in which adversaries are not defeated but continuously managed, and deterrence operates permanently below the threshold of decisive confrontation. Technology can align sensors and interceptors, but it cannot reconcile divergent threat perceptions, hedging instincts, or declining confidence in external guarantees, even when the convener is the United States. The core residual challenge of how to confront the resilient, low-cost, decentralised forms of power that still underpin Iran's destabilising strategy is precisely the one the CENTCOM statement does not address.

This series of articles is intended to shed light on the current situation through the lens of the past, far removed from passionate, ideological or romantic narratives that overlook the underlying realities. It is up to the reader to draw the appropriate conclusions. The previous six instalments offered a reassessment of the events surrounding the rise of Hezbollah’s power, from the Taif Agreement to the withdrawal of the Israeli army from South Lebanon in May 2000, and the establishment of a Hezbollahland in the South. Death of Hafez al-Assad and the Growing Iranian Influence in Syria and Lebanon On June 10, 2000, fifteen days after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Hafez al-Assad died of a heart attack. In the aftermath of his death, his son Bashar took over the presidency. Under his rule, Baathist Syria drew steadily closer to Iran. The country became a satellite of Tehran and a platform through which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) projected its power and influence toward Lebanon, as well as toward the West Bank via the Syrian-Jordanian border. The extent of IRGC control in Syria was clearly described in January 2009 by former Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam (1984–2005), who stated: “Iran is involved at the very heart of the Syrian regime: in its security services, in its military forces, in its economic institutions and in its mosques.” Southern Lebanon: A Hezbollahland With Military, Political and Social Dimensions Following the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000, President Émile Lahoud categorically refused to deploy the Lebanese army in the southern part of the country, up to the border with Israel. In doing so, he effectively relinquished the principle of national sovereignty and left the field open to Hezbollah, which quickly transformed South Lebanon into a multidimensional stronghold. The pro-Iranian militia reigned supreme there, under the complacent attitude of the Lebanese authorities and the Syrian occupation army. The latter was itself overseen by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers operating discreetly in the background. South Lebanon thus became a veritable Hezbollahland. At the military level, the Shiite organization expanded its rocket stockpile from a few thousand to around 15,000 units. In addition to the conventional Katyushas with a range of 20 km already in its possession, the pro-Iranian group was supplied by Iran with Fajr-3, Fajr-5, and Zelzal rockets, with ranges of 40, 72, and 250 km respectively. This arsenal was designed to give it the capacity to strike the entirety of Israeli territory. This large-scale rearmament was accompanied by the digging of an extensive network of tunnels and underground bunkers, intended to shield Hezbollah’s firing capabilities and protect its infrastructure from surveillance and Israeli airstrikes. This tactical preparation further reinforced expectation of an imminent war. The strengthening of Hezbollah’s military apparatus was also accompanied by growing political integration, marked by the movement’s entry into government for the first time in 2005, followed by its alliance with the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Michel Aoun through the Mar Mikhael Agreement, concluded in 2006. This pact enabled Hezbollah to break out of its sectarian isolation and consolidate its political influence in Lebanon. Through this unnatural alliance, the FPM primarily provided the armed extremist group with a rear base within the Christian community. For the first time in the country’s modern history, a predominantly Christian party carried out a U-turn that ran directly counter to its founding political line. After having shaped Lebanese national consciousness for more than a decade through its sovereigntist aspirations and its call for a rule-of-law state in Lebanon, it ultimately aligned itself with a faction beholden to a hegemonic regional power, which, quite clearly, would drag Lebanon into destructive wars. Hezbollah also established a quasi-parastatal social foothold in South Lebanon through near-free healthcare services and reconstruction efforts (notably via the engineering company “Jihad al-Bina’”) offering low-cost services under its own structure. These forms of support earned it the unwavering loyalty of the Shiite population. This multidimensional expansion enabled the group to maintain constant pressure along the Blue Line in South Lebanon, up until its cross-border military operation in July 2006, which triggered the third Israel-Hezbollah war, known as the 33-Day War. Prelude to the Third War With Israel A year after the Israeli withdrawal on May 24, 2000, it was clear that the presence of IRGC officers and long-range rockets in Lebanon was in no way intended to liberate the Shebaa Farms, but rather to turn the country into a missile-launching platform against Israel. This strategy served Iran’s geopolitical interests, notably by diverting attention from its nuclear program, which came under open international debate from 2002 onward, and by rallying the Arab world around Tehran on the Palestinian question. On the eve of the 2006 war, this situation did not reflect preparations for a direct Israel-Hezbollah confrontation but rather signaled an impending clash between Israel and Iran. The question was therefore not whether a war would break out, but when it would occur. A replay of the 1993 and 1996 conflicts was evident, but this time with heavier, longer-range rockets. Hezbollah officials made no secret of such intentions. In January 2002, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, vice-president of the executive council of the pro-Iranian movement, declared in an impassioned tone: “More than 2.5 million Israelis are now within range of our missiles.” Ali Larijani Inspires the July 12 Cross-Border Attack and Pulls the Strings Under international pressure over its nuclear program, Iran is said to have encouraged Hezbollah to carry out a cross-border attack that its then secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, was likely reluctant to endorse. The pro-Iranian movement reportedly sought to maintain calm along the border, a position clearly reflected in Nasrallah’s remarks during meetings of the “national dialogue conference” held in parliament in the spring of 2006. These discussions focused on a “national defense strategy.” Nasrallah had stressed the need to prevent Israel from dragging the country into war, insisting at the time that the movement’s arsenal served as a deterrent against Israeli aggression, rather than as a tool to initiate conflict. On the day of the attack itself, Nasrallah held a press conference in which he stated that the cross-border operation – during which two Israeli soldiers were captured – was intended solely as a means to secure a prisoner exchange. He added that he did not wish to see escalation into a full-scale war. Was this a genuine appeal to Israel not to widen the conflict, or a calculated posture? Two days before the operation, Ali Larijani (1) , then secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator, travelled to Damascus, where he met senior officials of the Assad regime as well as Hassan Nasrallah. He is reported to have informed his interlocutors that negotiations with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program had reached an impasse. According to some reports, he indicated that “action” was necessary, suggesting the opening of a new front to divert international pressure on Tehran. The Gaza front had already been burning for around two weeks. Before Larijani’s visit to Damascus, and more specifically in the spring of 2006, negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program between France, Britain, Germany and Iran had entered a deadlock phase following Tehran’s decision to resume uranium enrichment. The dialogue, initially conducted by the European trio, was then expanded to the P5+1 group, bringing in the United States, Russia and China, in an effort both to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic and to present it with a package of proposals. In June 2006, a major package of economic and technological incentives was presented to Tehran by Javier Solana, then High Representative of the European Union. In return, Western powers demanded a complete suspension of uranium enrichment as a precondition, a requirement Iran categorically rejected. This diplomatic impasse, perceived by Tehran as unbearable pressure, very likely contributed to the outbreak of hostilities by Hamas in Gaza, with the capture of an Israeli soldier on June 25, followed by the launch of Operation “Sincere Promise” in Lebanon. These two similar operations were aimed at prisoner exchanges between Israel on one side, and Hamas and Hezbollah on the other. Iran sought to position itself at the center of negotiations, as it had done during the Berlin talks in February 2000 and in other indirect negotiations conducted by Hezbollah with the Israeli state. Tehran had likely considered using the issue of prisoners held by Hamas and Hezbollah as leverage to ease the pressure it was facing over its nuclear file. This did not materialize, as the first UN Security Council sanctions against Iran were adopted in late July 2006, in the midst of the Gaza and Lebanon wars. (to be continued) (1) Ali Larijani was assassinated on March 17, 2026, in an Israeli strike in Tehran. Read also: Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (6) Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (5) Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (4) Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (3) Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (2) Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (1)