Mideast Fire Exchanges Increase Despite Ceasefire Conditions

One month after ceasefire agreements were separately made on two war fronts — Iran and Lebanon — fire exchanges are intensifying on both, a dynamic that could easily turn into a full war footing. As the firing increases, President Trump is attempting to restrain Israel from threatening the fragile ceasefire, and do the same with American troops at the Gulf. Washington officials described a Friday fire exchange between American and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as defensive. “If you fire at a U.S, Navy ship, what are we supposed to do? Say, oh, there’s a ceasefire?” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday at Rome. “Only stupid countries don’t shoot back when you’re shot at, and we’re not a stupid country.” Mr. Trump “will pursue every single option on the table at the exact same time,” a top Iran watcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. As a result, though, Lebanese, Israelis, and Iran’s Gulf neighbors increasingly find it difficult to determine whether they are in a ceasefire or at war. Northern Israel came under more intense Hezbollah attack on Friday than at any time since an April 16 Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire was agreed. The Israel Defense Forces retaliated, striking deeper into Lebanon than ever before.The Friday Hezbollah attack itself was a retaliation for the first IDF strike at Beirut since April 16. The Thursday night targeted strike killed the commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Ahmed Ghaleb Balout. He was the architect of Hezbollah’s unrealized plan to seize the Galilee via tunnels and hand gliders. At the Gulf, three empty Iranian-flagged oil tankers were struck by American fire Friday after attempting to break the blockade of Islamic Republic vessels. On Thursday American forces struck Iranian military facilities in what Central Command said was a “self defense” response to Iranian missiles, drones, and small boat attacks on American and United Arab Emirate targets.America’s initial lack of retaliation for the Iranian attack on the UAE led Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to suspend America’s use of its bases in their territory, according to sources in the Gulf. The retaliatory strikes led them to reverse that decision — and that allowed Mr. Trump to resume “Project Freedom” to open the Strait of Hormuz for global navigation. Even as the Iran and Lebanon fronts are heating up, Mr. Trump is promoting peace agreements. Mr. Rubio said Friday that America expects an Iranian reply to its one-page 12-point plan to launch war-ending talks. Tehran is adept at playing for time, though, and is unlikely to greenlight such conditions as ending its enrichment of uranium. “They probably won’t give it up but because they’re in survival mode, they’ll do what they have before — never yes, never no — but on steroids,” Mr. Ben Taleblu says. On another diplomatic front, the Israeli ambassador to America, Yechiel Leiter, is scheduled to conduct a third negotiating session next Thursday and Friday at Washington with his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad. To prepare for that meeting, American officials met with Ms. Moawad and other Lebanese officials on Thursday. The political leadership at Beirut is talking about disarming Hezbollah but is “being very honest that it cannot happen by force,” a Lebanese-born analyst at the New Line Institute, Danya Arayissi, who sat in on the Thursday session, tells the Sun. One idea would have Israel relay intelligence tips about Hezbollah to CentCom officials, who would pass those along to the Lebanese Armed Forces, but no IDF kinetic action. As Israelis see it, the Beirut government, and increasingly the country’s population, might recognize Hezbollah as an Iranian agent that threatens Lebanon. Yet Hezbollah owns the guns, and its officials openly threaten to kill any Lebanese politician who would cut a deal with Iran’s enemy, Israel. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s recent trip to Washington was canceled due to such threats. Ms. Moawad is unlikely to return to Beirut after her meetings with Mr. Leiter. Meanwhile the IDF is systematically destroying terror infrastructure in villages and towns in southern Lebanon’s Hezbollah stronghold, which are empty of their residents. Israelis increasingly complain that under American pressure to maintain a non-existent ceasefire, the IDF is too restrained to remove the threat of Hezbollah. Few people on either side consider the LAF capable of disarming Hezbollah.As negotiations with Iran seem at a dead end, and as fears grow of Hezbollah’s resurgence, it is hard to see how diplomacy under ever-shaky ceasefire agreements can last much longer.

Mideast Fire Exchanges Increase Despite Ceasefire Conditions

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