Articles

Over the past three weeks, Lebanon’s negotiating position has shifted quietly but significantly. Direct Lebanon-Israel talks are underway in Washington. These talks are capped by a 10-day ceasefire that began April 16 and was extended by three weeks on April 23 at Lebanon’s own request. The regional and domestic context has changed, but Lebanon’s government has not yet adapted apparently. Outside Lebanon and in the GCC more specifically, there is growing recognition that seeking Hezbollah’s disarmament and a full peace treaty with Israel is no longer realistic. Prominent regional actors assume that pursuing such outcomes now would likely rupture Lebanon internally, reviving sectarian confrontation that they are trying to avoid.

It is now no secret to anyone. Deep differences pit senior Iranian officials against each other regarding the direction that (potential) negotiations with the United States should take. This divide, which is increasingly bursting out into the open, has practically frozen, or even called into question, what some call "the diplomatic option" in the search for a way out of the current conflict. These differences tearing apart the two antagonistic currents within the Iranian regime – the Revolutionary Guards against the so-called "moderate" faction – have practically rendered obsolete the visit that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had begun at the end of the week in Islamabad. Right from the start, this visit by the head of Iranian diplomacy was torpedoed by the president of the national security commission in the Iranian Parliament, who declared that "Araghchi is not entrusted with any mission in Pakistan concerning the nuclear negotiations." He also stressed that "the nuclear negotiations constitute one of the red lines for Iran."

Anyone examining Hezbollah's logo and the image it represents will note that, since its creation, this party has been an armed wing of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is no longer a simple symbolic representation, but a reality supported by facts: Hezbollah has supported Iran because it is its armed wing, and Iran has often boasted of controlling four Arab capitals, including Beirut. The organic link between the 'head' and the 'armed wing' was confirmed by the ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon. The two agreements were inextricably linked; when an agreement wavered in Tehran, the other wavered in Beirut. So much so that some research and study centers claim that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), just as it controls the decision-making centers in Iran, also controls those of Hezbollah in Beirut. There are at least two pieces of evidence supporting this:

The 2025 United States National Security Strategy (NSS) is centered on the "America First" principle and demands greater strategic autonomy from its European allies, whom President Donald Trump is pressing to take charge of their own defense on their continent. Washington would thus have its hands free to focus first on its domestic situation and on the American continent, infiltrated by China and Russia, and then on the Pacific Basin. To this end, it needs to reduce its involvement in the Middle East and keep it sustainably stable. For this purpose, the definitive neutralization of the threat from Iran and Hezbollah is essential. A weakened Iran would pave the way for an unprecedented expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

The victory of Peter Magyar and his party “Tisza” marks a historic turning point in the Hungarian political landscape, ending sixteen years of Viktor Orbán's rule and his Fidesz party. The elections were described as the most important in decades, not only because of the record popular turnout, but also because their outcome granted the opposition a two-thirds majority in parliament, enabling it to amend the constitution and roll back the illiberal policies Orbán had entrenched during his years in power. The new president Magyar pledged to restore press freedom and reform state media, in a move aimed at dismantling the system of information control on which the previous regime had relied. The great surprise was Orbán's acknowledgment of defeat immediately after the results, without attempting to cling to power by force, which spared the country a political crisis or violent protests.

In a forthcoming series of articles, we intend to shed light on the current situation through the lens of history, steering clear of impassioned, ideological, or romanticized narratives that overlook the realities on the ground. Our aim is to give readers the tools to draw their own conclusions. In this context, it is high time to seriously challenge the sterile rhetoric of “resistance” – not with counter-rhetoric, but through a deeper approach that champions the rule of law, which can only be built on sovereignty. To understand the present, few things are as revealing as revisiting contemporary history, which continues to shape collective memory. The wars between Israel and Hezbollah deserve a closer look – beginning with the first conflict in 1993, along with the key events that preceded it, not to mention Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon on 25 May 2000, and the preceding and subsequent events, including the wars of 1996, 2006, 2023–2024, and 2026.