Some kind of diplomatic progress is now under way, but is it enough to prevent a return to war?
13 hours ago
Paul AdamsDiplomatic correspondent
Reuters
With not one, but two ceasefires in place across the Middle East, is the scene now set for a pair of historic breakthroughs?
The ceasefires - in Iran and Lebanon - are both described as "shaky" (ceasefires generally are), but as the din of war fades away once more, this is a moment pregnant with opportunity. And risk.
On the face of it, Thursday night's announcement of a 10-day pause in the fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, is a win for Iran.
The regime in Tehran had demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon, saying talks with the US could not be expected to progress without it.
With the pause now in place, Iran has responded, declaring the Strait of Hormuz "completely open".
As last weekend's marathon negotiating session in Islamabad showed, progress was in fact possible, even as the fighting in Lebanon continued (with Israel merely avoiding further attacks on Beirut). But Iran and Pakistan both insisted that Lebanon must be included.
That has now happened, much to the fury of Israelis living close to the northern border who believe that their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has caved in to American pressure, rather than making sure Hezbollah never fires another rocket at their country.
For some in Israel, the ceasefire plays right into Iran's hand, allowing Israel's mortal enemy to dictate the course of events.
"The ceasefire effectively puts Israel's stamp of approval on the very situation the country had been trying to avoid: legitimising the link between Iran and the Lebanese theatre of operations," Shirit Avitan Cohen of the popular right-wing daily Israel Hayom wrote this morning.
"Yesterday, Hezbollah also received final confirmation that its master, and Lebanon's, still has its hands on the wheel and continues to dictate what happens in the region."
In fact, all the players involved in these overlapping conflicts get something out of the latest deal.
For US President Donald Trump and the leadership in Iran, it's a chance to take credit for bringing about a ceasefire.
Netanyahu can point to the fact that Israeli troops remain on the ground in southern Lebanon, while the Lebanese government, after months of trying, now has direct negotiations with Israel.
Hezbollah, which says it will abide by the ceasefire (while insisting that it still has its "finger on the trigger") has not been defeated and insists it will not be disarmed.
"Not until a proper ceasefire, a real one. Not until Israeli withdrawal. Before the return of prisoners, before the return of displaced people and before the reconstruction. Until then, it is not possible to talk about Hezbollah's weapons," senior Hezbollah leader Wafiq Safa told the BBC on Thursday.
Lina Khatib, of the London-based think tank Chatham House, says the ceasefire paves the way for Israel and Lebanon to continue their face-to-face talks but that the obstacles to a peace agreement between the two are enormous.
"The issue is very complicated," she says. "It has to do with border demarcation, the disarmament of Hezbollah and the withdrawal of Israel from Lebanese territory."
Israel and Lebanon have technically been in a state of war since 1948 and the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.
But far from strengthening Iran's position across the region, Khatib argues that this week's direct talks in Washington between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors have started the process of removing Lebanon from Iran's hands.
"The regional balance of power is shifting away from Iran," she says. "Now it's no longer going to be able to use Lebanon as a bargaining chip."
Reuters
But much still depends on what happens in the other diplomatic process, between the US and Iran.
Reducing what America and Israel see as Iran's malign behaviour across the Middle East will be on Washington's agenda, if and when a second widely anticipated round of talks in Islamabad goes ahead.
For Israel in particular, it is vital that Iran's support for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen is curtailed, ending decades in which Iran's "Axis of Resistance" has been able to threaten and harass the Jewish state.
Iran will not give up what it regards as a vital tool of regional influence lightly.
But that's just one of the formidable challenges that lies ahead.
The others - the fate of Iran's nuclear programme and the future of the Strait of Hormuz - are going to take some negotiating.
Trump, as always, is doing his best to sound like he's in control, saying a deal with Iran is "very close", that the war is going "swimmingly", telling reporters that Iran has already agreed to hand over around 440kg (970lb) of highly enriched uranium (the president is fond of calling it "nuclear dust") thought to be buried under the rubble of a facility in Isfahan bombed last year.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denied that claim, telling state TV: "The transfer of uranium to the US has not been presented as an option. Iran's enriched uranium is as sacred to us as the soil of Iran and will under no circumstances be transferred anywhere."
Any deal on the nuclear file would also need a pledge from Iran never to build a nuclear weapon, as well as agreement on how long it would be willing to suspend enrichment.
Then there's Iran's other weapon, always in the country's armoury but only recently deployed: its closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran says it wants a new set of protocols to govern maritime traffic through the narrow waterway, replacing its current chokehold with a legal framework that would recognise what it regards as its sovereign right, along with Oman, to control what moves in and out of the Gulf.
In the meantime, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, welcoming the ceasefire in Lebanon, says the Strait is "completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire" – in other words, for the next week.
There is a caveat: vessels will be expected to use what Aragchi called "the co-ordinated route as already announced by the Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran".
This appears to refer to new routes, running much closer to the Iranian mainland, north of the two traffic separation lanes in use before the war.
How quickly this eases the bottleneck of vessels trapped inside the Gulf remains to be seen.
Trump says, in his typically full-throated way, that the strait is "FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE," and the markets appear to have responded positively. But captains may well be looking over their shoulders, and Trump says the US blockade of Iranian ports remains in place for now.
Despite these positive developments, it's safe to say that there's a lot of ground for negotiators to cover.
The last major deal with Iran, 2015's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), took around 20 months to negotiate and only addressed the nuclear issue. Trump pulled America out of the deal in 2018, leading it to crumble.
Trump loves to project the image of a rapid deal-maker, rarely looking back to see what, if anything, his deals actually achieved.
For all the hoopla surrounding his two summits with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in 2018-19, the meetings in fact achieved very little. Pyongyang continues to develop its nuclear programme.
But after the tumultuous events of the past six weeks, some kind of diplomatic process is now well under way and will have received a boost following the ceasefire in Lebanon.
Is it enough to prevent an eventual return to war? Not even Trump knows that.
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