The Israel–Lebanon agreement exposes two opposing strategies: defeating Iran’s proxies to restore sovereignty, or appeasing them while pressuring Israel.

The framework agreement signed in Washington between Israel and Lebanon is more than a bilateral security arrangement. It is a strategic test that reveals the choice facing governments that claim to seek regional stability: either roll back the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies, or accommodate them while pressing Israel for concessions.

Lebanon’s tragedy has not been a lack of international sympathy. It has been the absence of sovereignty. No state can be sovereign when an armed militia, financed and guided by a foreign power, controls territory and decides matters of war and peace. No government can restore national authority while a terrorist army stronger than its official forces drags the country into wars its citizens did not choose.

That is why Hezbollah’s rejection of the agreement is so revealing. Hezbollah does not oppose it because it weakens Lebanon. It opposes it because it weakens Hezbollah. The logic is simple: Israeli withdrawal must be linked to the removal of the threat that forced Israel into Lebanon in the first place. Withdrawal while Hezbollah remains........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)