The latest exchange between Israel and Iran lasted barely long enough to remind the region how little separates diplomacy from escalation. A ceasefire that appeared stable one day looked vulnerable the next, until President Donald Trump intervened publicly and both sides stepped back. Yet even as direct fire subsided, Israeli aircraft continued to strike targets in Lebanon as Iran warned that further attacks on Hezbollah could provoke a response.
\nThis is not simply another episode in a conflict that has already produced too many. Washington appears to be pursuing an understanding with Tehran on the assumption that the Iran file can be managed separately from the Lebanon file. The events of the past week suggest that neither Israel nor Iran accepts that distinction.
\nFor Israel, Hezbollah is not a secondary theatre. It is the most heavily armed component of Iran\u2019s regional network and the one positioned directly on Israel\u2019s border. Any agreement that eases pressure on Tehran while leaving Hezbollah intact is unlikely to satisfy Israeli security planners. That helps explain why, even as Washington speaks of negotiations entering their final phase, Israel continues military operations in southern Lebanon, and claims it reserves the right to escalate further if it believes Hezbollah remains a threat.Arabs & Middle Easterners
\nIran\u2019s calculations are equally revealing. Tehran increasingly appears to regard Israeli actions there as a test of the credibility of any broader diplomatic process. If negotiations with Washington are meant to reduce the risk of conflict, Iranian officials argue, then they must also restrain behaviour that could reignite that conflict through another front.
\nWhat has emerged, then, is a curious paradox. The closer the parties appear to a possible agreement, the greater the incentive to improve their bargaining positions before one is reached. Israel wants to ensure that diplomacy does not constrain its freedom of action against Hezbollah. Iran wants to ensure that diplomacy produces tangible limits on Israeli action. Washington wants both outcomes simultaneously. That may be politically convenient, but it is strategically difficult.
\nThe problem is not unique to this crisis. Middle Eastern diplomacy has often struggled because negotiators treat interconnected conflicts as separate files. They may be discussed separately in briefing rooms, but the actors involved rarely see them that way. Lebanon, Gaza, the Gulf and Iran form part of a wider strategic contest in which developments in one arena rapidly affect calculations in another.
\nThe markets appear to understand this reality better than many policymakers. Oil prices retreated when Israel and Iran stopped firing directly at each other, but traders remain sensitive to developments in Lebanon and the possibility of disruption to maritime routes.
\nThe question is no longer whether Israel and Iran can stop shooting at each other for a few days. It is whether diplomacy can reconcile fundamentally different views of where the conflict begins and ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest exchange between Israel and Iran lasted barely long enough to remind the region how little separates diplomacy from escalation. A ceasefire that appeared stable one day looked vulnerable the next, until President Donald Trump intervened publicly and both sides stepped back. Yet even as direct fire subsided, Israeli aircraft continued to strike targets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n