How Mideast Policy Is Diverging With Vance and Rubio Leading Opposing Visions

President Trump’s doctrine, as it emerges in his Mideast policy, is trending in two opposing directions. It is personified by the potential top Republicans in the 2028 presidential race: Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.A Memorandum of Understanding between America and the Islamic Republic of Iran, inked by Mr. Trump at Switzerland on June 18, was steered by Mr. Vance. Last Friday Mr. Rubio presided over a signed agreement between the governments of Israel and Lebanon. The first pact is favored by the mullahs and its proxies. Israel is welcoming the second. Mideast officials and residents are getting a whiplash from the Vance-Rubio competing views. “Thank you Iran” banners were erected alongside roads leading to the Beirut airport after the mid-June signing of the MoU. They were taken down when Jerusalem and Beirut signed a deal Friday. New banners offered an opposite message: “Lebanon First.”That is because the first paragraph of the MoU — which Mr. Vance promoted — is promising an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” That promise allows Iran to rearm Hezbollah, even as it continues to dominate Lebanon and threaten Israel.A fierce back and forth last week between teams headed by the Lebanese ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadeh, and her Israeli counterpart, Yechiel Leiter threatened to derail a deal. Mr. Rubio managed to overcome the disagreements, though. “Israel and Lebanon affirm the right of each state to exist in peace,” the deal’s first paragraph says. According to the pact, Israel will remain in a security zone it has already established on Lebanese soil until such time as Hezbollah is disarmed. Two areas in that zone were transferred to the Lebanese Armed Forces on Monday to face Hezbollah and assert the government’s exclusive hold on power. “Two framework documents were signed this month, one between the U.S. and Iran, the other between Israel and Lebanon,” a top Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, writes on X. “Each has its own problems, but now a new one has emerged: They pull in two opposite strategic directions.”The Beirut-Jerusalem agreement is “a terrible mistake,” Hezbollah secretary general, Naim Qassem averred. “It should be replaced with the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the U.S.” Hezbollah is threatening a civil war. Mr. Trump is “pursuing two different regional strategies, one in the Levant and one in the Strait of Hormuz,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ senior director of the Iran program, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. “One can only hope for coordination and not just deconfliction from different wings of the administration.”Vance: Hormuz FirstThe top promise in the MoU that was pushed by the vice president — the opening of the Hormuz Strait to free navigation — is yet to materialize. Yet “if you look at oil right now, it’s back down to $73 a barrel, got up to $126 a barrel, so there’s a signal that there’s something real going on here,” Mr. Vance told the commentator Bill Maher over the weekend. Will crude prices remain low if Iran insists on charging fees for ship travel in the Strait — and as Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps shoots at tankers traveling Oman’s territorial waters in Hormuz’s southern corridor?Mr. Vance allowed Iran-friendly American-allied countries, Pakistan and Qatar, to “mediate” the MoU agreement, even as both countries see the other Mideast ally, Israel, as an enemy. Pakistani passports specify that they are valid to all world countries, except Israel.Even before the fate of Hormuz became clear, America relaxed sanctions banning Iran oil exports and unfroze funds held for decades in escrow in Qatari banks. Why? “Even IRGC officials say, ‘you know what, we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we’ve done business with the United States for forty seven years is a mistake, let’s try something else,” Mr. Vance told CNN. The mullahs’ “animosity,” though, never ceased. “The first step in fulfilling the Leader’s demands in the negotiations is to insist on handing Trump over to the Islamic Republic for trial in Iran’s judicial authorities,” a top commentator in the regime mouthpiece, the Kayhan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari, writes Sunday. The MoU was written with high hopes. Following a decisive, though incomplete, military campaign in which America and Israel demolished much of the Islamic Republic’s military power, Mr. Vance and others reasoned, the mullahs would face reality and cut their losses. Instead, Iran is using the lull in fighting for slow-talking America on nuclear talks and igniting small skirmishes in the Gulf, including hits at Kuwait and Bahrain over the weekend. Rubio’s View: Iran, Not Israel, Is the ProblemThe Lebanon-Israel pact can turn just as shaky as the America-Iran ceasefire. On Monday the Israel Defense Forces shook up southern Lebanon, exploding a Hezbollah deep-dug tunnel filled with arms. The tunnel, IDF officials say, was dug by Iranian engineers as a base to attack northern Israel.Even as Iran was involved in an economically-devastating war, it invested more than $1 billion last year, reconstructing Hezbollah’s military power. Israeli Security officials say they fully expect Iran to challenge the Jerusalem-Beirut agreement, including by launching missiles at Israeli civilian centers. “There is no equation we will accept in which Iran fires at Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz told reporters on Monday. “This has also been made clear to the Americans. The IDF is just waiting for it and is on alert. There are targets.” At the same time the Israeli-Lebanese deal seems to be a good opening for a better future for both countries. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, as well as most of Lebanon’s population, are welcoming an end to Hezbollah’s and Iran’s occupation of the country. The commander of the U.S. Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, visited Lebanon to oversee the IDF transfer of two security zones to the Lebanese army. The deal promises American assistance to that army, which needs to uproot Hezbollah sympathizers in its ranks. Disarming Hezbollah, and the ensuing Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, could lead to a historic peace treaty. Mr. Vance’s White House outburst, accusing Ukraine’s President Volodimir Zelensky of not thanking America demonstrated his lack of experience in foreign policy. The MoU he steered is yet to show results.Mr. Rubio, a veteran of senate debates over Mideast and Western Hemisphere affairs, is clearly seeing the danger posed to America by the Islamic Republic. His Lebanon deal is a diplomatic masterstroke, and an understated dig at the MoU.

How Mideast Policy Is Diverging With Vance and Rubio Leading Opposing Visions

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