LevantTime .

Following the official announcement of a framework agreement between Washington and Tehran on a memorandum of understanding to serve as the basis for talks between the two capitals, the picture looks like this: effusiveness in Tehran, where the document is being hailed as a historic victory; anger in Israel; calculated restraint in the United States; cautious optimism in Lebanon; and relief in Gulf countries and Europe, accompanied by a drop in oil prices. The memorandum of understanding, announced late Sunday night by President Donald Trump, is set to be signed on Friday in Geneva, where Trump arrived Monday to take part in G7 meetings. The document is said to have already been signed electronically.

And here we go again. Tensions are rising in the region with a new wave of strikes on Iran, announced for this evening by U.S. President Donald Trump, who also threatened to seize control of the strategic island of Kharg — the linchpin of Iran's oil economy. However, in yet another reversal, Trump later posted on his Truth Social platform that he had decided to call off the strikes he had been threatening against Iran, asserting that "discussions with the Islamic Republic have been seen and approved by Iran's highest authorities." And, as is often the case, the news was quickly denied by Iran's Fars news agency. But according to Axios , senior Iranian officials confirmed that a "framework agreement" had been reached, but that they were "awaiting the approval of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei."

Tensions continue to rise in the region but remain, for now, under control. It seems as though Tehran and Washington — which are continuing to exchange messages through Pakistani mediators — have opted for a new tactic: diplomacy under fire. It is through this lens that the military actions launched by Iran in the region over the past forty-eight hours are being viewed today. Strangled by the maritime blockade Washington has imposed on its ports, the Islamic Republic — which had until now been playing for time — has no option left but the military one to ease the pressure bearing down on it from two directions. The first concerns the direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations toward a peace agreement. If concluded, such a deal would inevitably end Iran's grip on Lebanon through Hezbollah, at a time when Tehran is pushing to have the Hezbollah file placed on the agenda of any potential talks with Washington, in order to dictate its own terms. The second relates to its own negotiations with the United States over a lasting ceasefire.

It is once again the familiar stop-start pattern of diplomacy in the Iran conflict. After recent statements by American officials suggesting – yet again – the imminent prospect of a “deal” with the Islamic Republic, fresh storm clouds gathered on Tuesday evening. Late in the evening, President Donald Trump said he had received a report from U.S. military command indicating that Iranian fire had brought down an American Apache helicopter on Monday night in the Strait of Hormuz, while it was conducting a patrol in the area. The pilot and co-pilot were rescued unharmed by U.S. military teams after a two-hour search operation.

Just when it seemed Iran had definitively shelved its war machines in their silos, Tehran launched around thirty ballistic missiles against the Jewish state late Sunday evening. Iranian authorities presented this attack as retaliation for an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, which killed two people and wounded twenty. The message is clear: Iran opposes the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations conducted under Washington's auspices and intends to position itself as a defender of Lebanon "against the Israeli enemy," even at the risk of further escalation. Tehran continues to insist that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah be addressed within the same framework as the broader confrontation opposing it to Israel and its allies in the Middle East.

As negotiations on the American-Iranian front stall and security incidents multiply in the Gulf, Lebanese authorities stand out with a clearly sovereigntist strategic vision, while at the same time a military escalation occurred at the end of the week with a bombing of the southern suburb and an Iranian threat against Israel. "Lebanon is our country, not yours." These words spoken by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun during a widely-followed interview with CNN's renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour on Friday not only marked the week that just ended in Lebanon, but certainly reinforce the trend toward a clear shift in official discourse in the direction of the sovereigntist message that was central to the head of state's inauguration speech.

Pakistani diplomacy is active on two fronts, Lebanese and Iranian, with the official visit of the commander-in-chief of the army, General Rodolphe Haykal, to Islamabad, and that of Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi to Tehran. Though different, both missions are part of sustained efforts to restore calm in the region. The Lebanese army announced Saturday the departure of its commander for Islamabad, at the invitation of his Pakistani counterpart and the defense minister, without specifying the purpose of the visit. Because of friction between Beirut and Tehran, exacerbated by Wednesday's Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire agreement, all signs point to General Haykal's trip to Islamabad as part of Pakistan's mediation efforts between the United States and Iran. And for good reason: the Hezbollah file is among the points of contention between Washington and Tehran.

The declaration, described as 'historic,' resulting from Washington negotiations on Thursday, was followed on Friday by unprecedented and decisive statements from Lebanon's top leadership. Declarations that appear to accelerate momentum toward the full restoration of Lebanon's sovereignty in the face of Iran and its armed wing, Hezbollah. On Friday, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam issued stern warnings to Tehran, urging it to cease all interference in Lebanese affairs. 'This is not your country, it is ours (...) You have no right to intervene in our country,' President Aoun told Iran during an interview with CNN.

The fourth round of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations held Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington ended with a 'first': the publication, in the night from Wednesday to Thursday (Levant time) of a joint American-Lebanese-Israeli statement whose content itself constitutes another 'first'. Alongside the establishment of a ceasefire conditioned on the Hezbollah halting its fire against Israel and the creation of 'pilot zones' in the South under the sole control of the Lebanese army, the document emphasizes—and this is where the precedent lies—that 'the future of relations between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments'.

The second session of the fourth round of direct Lebanon-Israel talks resumed Wednesday at the US State Department in Washington. The discussions remain arduous and are being impacted by violence on the ground in southern Lebanon. They were due to resume after a lunch break. Beirut is still trying to secure from Tel Aviv a commitment to a lasting truce, while on the ground the ceasefire framework imposed by President Donald Trump on Monday, after Israeli threats to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs, continues to be tested. On Wednesday, Hezbollah showed little regard for threats issued by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, who warned that the army would strike Beirut’s southern suburbs if the Iranian-backed group continued attacks on northern Israeli localities. Donald Trump firmly opposed such strikes.