Trump wants to end the war with Iran. That involves protecting Lebanon from Israel.

US President Donald Trump says that he “calls the shots” on negotiating with Iran, and Israel has no choice but to submit to a deal that undermines its security interests. But a deal that makes Trump the protector of Lebanon – and, by extension, Iran-backed Hezbollah – could put the US and Israel on a collision course.

The ceasefire that was apparently agreed on 15 June between the United States and Iran reflects US President Donald Trump’s desperation to escape the quagmire he created. Gone is the muddled array of objectives he touted in the war’s early days. All the Trump administration has reportedly secured in the new agreement is a promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war, and plans for new negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, which was already under discussion. But even these pared-down goals might prove unattainable if Israel continues its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Trump is already fed up with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was Netanyahu who advised him in 2018 to abandon the nuclear deal then-President Barack Obama had reached with Iran three years earlier, putting Trump on the hook to deliver a better one.

Netanyahu also convinced Trump to launch the current war by touting a heady vision of the world’s two most powerful air forces quickly annihilating the Islamic Republic’s military and........

© Pearls and Irritations