Taline Becharraoui

The week that has just passed in the Middle East has been a crescendo of rhetoric and military action, culminating this Monday, April 6, in the end of the ultimatum issued by Donald Trump to the mullahs' regime, with the White House chief threatening to “annihilate” Iran's energy facilities. A week during which the American president was anything but stingy with declarations, the apotheosis having been reached on Saturday, when he gave the leaders in Tehran 48 hours to endorse the agreement he presented to them, failing which “hell” would descend upon them. Donald Trump asks them to “conclude a deal or open the Strait of Hormuz,” referring to negotiations based on the 15 points put forward by the Americans, which mainly concern the abandonment of nuclear and ballistic programs, as well as the cessation of funding for regional allies such as Hezbollah.

Once again, public opinion and the populations of the Levant, and the Middle East in general, are confronted with a cascade of contradictory statements and indiscretions leaked to the media, concerning the evolution of the war launched on February 28 in the region. President Donald Trump thus reaffirmed this Wednesday, April 1 st , the existence in Tehran of a «new regime», indicating that the «president of this new power has just asked us for a ceasefire». « We will decide on the expediency of this ceasefire when the Strait of Hormuz is reopened to free maritime circulation, President Trump declared. Otherwise, we will continue to bomb the infrastructure in order to bring Iran back to the Stone Age ».

The war in the Middle East, triggered on February 28 by an Israeli-American attack against the Iranian Mullahs' regime, seems to be settling in for the long haul, and as a result, the fate of potential negotiations between Iran and the United States remains unknown. Following a verbal escalation by the Iranians, who stated their refusal of the fifteen-point plan proposed this week by Washington, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul contradicted the official statements. He told the German press on Friday that the United States and Iran are preparing for direct talks in Pakistan. In parallel, US President Donald Trump extended his ultimatum (threatening to destroy Iran's energy facilities) until April 6, seemingly to give a chance to the ongoing negotiations.

The past 24 hours in a Middle East at war offer a stark illustration of the uneasy coexistence between intensifying fighting and persistent reports of backchannel negotiations between the United States and Iran. Even as Israeli and US strikes on Iranian military and civilian infrastructure continue unabated – and as thousands of Marines are set to be deployed to the region in the coming days – reports in credible media outlets of a 15-point list of demands set by Washington as a basis for talks with Tehran have dominated headlines since Tuesday evening, with Pakistani, Turkish and other mediation efforts reportedly under way. Strikes on the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure, as threatened by US President Donald Trump on Sunday, appear for now to have been delayed.

The death of the strongman of the Iranian regime, Ali Larijani, on Tuesday, March 17, and that of several other high-ranking officials and senior executives of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, has not reduced the regime's involvement in the conflict, as it has just launched ballistic missiles for the first time outside the Middle East, towards Diego Garcia, 4000 kilometers away, and targeted Dimona, in southern Israel on Saturday evening. In Lebanon, it is on the Southern front that fighting is raging. The third week of the confrontation between the powerful American and Israeli armies on one side, and the Iranian regime on the other, was as full of twists and turns as the previous ones, and the state in which the Iranian regime now finds itself is more precarious than ever, even if its strike force remains not insignificant.

As fighting continues to rage in southern Lebanon and tensions escalate on the Iranian front, attention has turned to Riyadh on 19 March – where the Saudi capital hosted an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries. Gulf Arab states have been under Iranian missile fire since the launch of the Israeli-American offensive against Iran on 28 February. Under the pretext of targeting American interests in these countries, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have struck civilian infrastructure and urban centers, while continuing to threaten vital oil facilities. The tone of statements following the Riyadh meeting was notably firm – not only regarding missiles and drones attacks on the Gulf, but also in response to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes, including much of the Gulf’s exports. Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud made clear his rejection of any pressure linked to the strait, stressing “the right of (Gulf) states to defend themselves against ongoing attacks.”

In Iran, the fate of the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is in question, and a highly strategic Iranian island has been targeted by US aviation. On the Lebanese front, Israel continues its ground offensive despite some diplomatic breakthroughs in recent days around the idea of direct negotiations with Israel, launched by the Lebanese government; a proposal that remains dependent on the situation on the ground. For the second consecutive week, the Middle East is living as if in fast forward. The attack on Iran by the Israeli and American armies continues, with intensive bombings reaching, on March 14, the highly strategic Iranian island of Kharg, north of the Persian Gulf. This island houses large oil infrastructures that were intentionally spared by the Americans, while President Donald Trump indicated that military installations had been reduced to nothing. The attack on this island constitutes a fundamental development as it poses a potential threat to Iran's oil exports.

As the Israeli-American offensive against Iran enters its tenth day–an assault that has set the entire region ablaze, Lebanon included–tensions continue to mount. While US and Israeli authorities are raising the tone, the pillars of the Iranian regime, currently fighting for their survival, have responded with heightened virulence, appearing to find a second wind following the announcement of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader. US President Donald Trump set the tone on Monday, claiming he believes the war is “very complete, pretty much.” In an interview with CBS, the president suggested that the conflict is moving “very far ahead” of its initial schedule. “It is we who will decide when the war ends,” the Revolutionary Guards shot back in a defiant statement.

From the kickoff, on February 28, of the Israeli-American offensive against the Iranian mullahs' regime, marked by the assassination of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei, until the flare-up of the South Lebanon front, at dawn on the 1 st March, including Iranian strikes on all Arab Gulf countries, the first week of the new Middle East war is undoubtedly historic in more ways than one. There are years that can be summarized in a few words, and weeks that seem like years. The days from January 28 to March 8, 2026, have been so full of twists and turns that they could be described as a transition from one era to another.

The night of Friday, March 6 to Saturday, March 7, was marked by an Israeli helicopter-borne intrusion into a village in the Beqaa Valley, the apparent objective of which was to search for the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman who disappeared in 1986 after his plane was shot down. The inhabitants of several Lebanese regions, notably Mount Lebanon, heard the incessant noise of Israeli low-altitude aviation throughout the night from Friday to Saturday. The operation itself took place in a village in Baalbeck in the northern Beqaa, Nabi Chit, which was the scene of a commando unit's operation.