Decryption

Shortly before the last U.S. presidential election, JD Vance gave a speech in Washington in which he laid out his vision of what U.S. strategy in the world should look like. In essence, he stressed that Washington should focus its policy on the situation in Asia. In that context, he noted that in other sensitive regions of the world, the U.S. administration should be able to rely on its allies while providing them with the necessary support. In other words, Mr. Vance argued that in the Middle East, for example, “Israel and the Sunni states” should take responsibility for their own defense by countering Iranian expansionism, with U.S. support. Likewise, Europe should be expected to provide for its own defense while also benefiting from American support.

France plans to send troops, radar systems and air defenses to Saudi Arabia to protect energy infrastructure at the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The assistance is intended to secure a site that has become crucial to the kingdom's oil exports, as attacks by the Houthis and other Iranian-backed militias threaten its supply routes. President Emmanuel Macron said France did not intend to take part in the conflict and that the deployment had been agreed with Riyadh. He did not rule out further assistance depending on how the situation develops. Why Yanbu? Since the start of the military campaign waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, the Yanbu site has become highly strategic: its port allows Saudi Arabia to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blocked by Tehran.

While the United States has promised an 'economic D-Day' for Iran, this strategy can only become fully effective with the cooperation of China, Iran's top oil importer and leading supplier of military technology to the mullahs' regime. After six months of war in the Middle East, Washington has reason to worry about the quagmire this conflict—initially expected to last only a few weeks—has become. With no quick military solution in sight, the Trump administration has chosen to strangle the Iranian regime by introducing new sanctions targeting not Tehran directly, but its trading partners, in order to isolate the Iranian economy.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump rightly drew attention to an aspect of the war in Iran that some Western political leaders and media outlets have conspicuously overlooked: the humanitarian dimension of the Iranian crisis, and, more specifically, the murderous and appalling conduct of certain power centers within the ruling establishment in Tehran. As part of their campaign of repression and coercion, they have resorted to the near-daily execution and public hanging from cranes of schoolchildren, teenagers under 18 and young university students, seeking to terrorize the population and create an atmosphere of fear designed to suppress any attempt at a popular uprising.

Two major developments mark the start of the week: Washington’s extraordinary economic and financial offensive against Iran – dubbed the “economic D-Day” – and, in Lebanon, the resurgence of the case of Mohammad Reza Chibani, Iran’s designated but unaccredited ambassador to Beirut. The significance of the barrage of sanctions announced by Washington on Monday lies in its direct consequences across multiple fronts, both in the short and medium term, for Iran’s economy, the survival of the mullahs’ regime, the regional balance of power and even international relations, particularly with China. The Mohammad Chibani affair, of course, is in no way comparable to the economic D-Day. Above all, however, it puts the Lebanese authorities’ ability to maintain consistency between their words and their actions to the test. It matters because it represents yet another test for a Lebanese state that has long struggled to assert its authority. On Monday, August 24, official Lebanon failed the test once again.

The Iranian mullah regime, and more specifically the radical faction represented by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, continues to seek control over the Strait of Hormuz crisis by dictating its own terms and sidelining the United States from ongoing negotiations—indeed, outright denying Washington any role in the emerging solution. To achieve this goal, Tehran's decision-makers negotiated the proposed settlement exclusively with the Sultanate of Oman, taking care to insist that no dialogue is taking place with the US. Even more strikingly, pushing its arrogance and open contempt for the American president even further, the Iranian regime declared on Wednesday morning that 'the agreement with Oman has been postponed due to threats made by the United States.'

What answer can be given to Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, when he taunts Lebanon by declaring that “soon, fire will consume its cedars?” What response is there to Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, who mocks Lebanon by saying that his son asks him “to leave something for him to destroy?” Israeli officials should choose their words more carefully. Words carry consequences. Katz invokes the Book of Zechariah: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars! … Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled! The sound of the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! The sound of the roar of the lions, for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined” (Zechariah 11:1–3).

Disinformation and the distortion of historical facts clearly have no limits for certain circles. On the occasion of Catholic Easter, last April 5, a Hezbollah official, Hassan Dorr, published the following message on X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/HasanDorr/status/2040735419952718037?s=20   « At the call of O Holy Mary: The « Resistance » sends its greetings to our Christian brothers on the occasion of #Easter by targeting the « Stella Maris » base, belonging to the murderers of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), in occupied #Palestine » . The Hezbollah activist accompanied his message with a video of the operation. According to the visual elements displayed on screen, the video appears to be a recording of a live broadcast from Al-Mayadeen, a pan-Arab satellite news channel aligned with Hezbollah, with a banner indicating: «Images of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon». The video of the operation also bears the logo of «Hezbollah's media war apparatus» .

The terms of the ceasefire agreement – set to last for a limited period of two weeks – remain, as presented unofficially, ambiguous. Iran is reported to have agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, described as a major concession in exchange for the ceasefire. The strait meets the criteria defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as an international strait. Section 2 of the Convention outlines the definition of an international strait and sets out the rules governing the passage of ships through its waters and the overflight of aircraft above it. Article 37 “This section applies to straits which are used for international navigation between one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone and another part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone.”

Americans are known for being "direct," especially in the questions they ask their interlocutors, expecting an automatic, Manichaean answer: yes/no, black/white. Kash Patel, FBI director, during his Senate hearing, was relentlessly pressed by Senator Eric Swalwell with the same question: "Did you inform the Attorney General about the mention of Donald Trump's name in the Epstein file, yes or no?", a question to which Patel did not give the expected categorical answer. While the answer to this question is simple, as it concerns a fact, the one posed by Senator Lindsey Graham, in Washington, to the army's commander-in-chief, General Rodolphe Haykal, is, however, much more complex, as it concerns an opinion, or even a political stance.