The American-Iranian memorandum of understanding and the "gifts" it presented the Iranian regime, have relieved the Resistance Axis. There was nothing contrived about it. It looked rather like a project for "regional peace" between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and Iran and its axis, on the other. Denials were made Tehran to the southern suburbs of Beirut, and there was a sense that the end of the war would grant these arms American recognition of their status as being under Iranian protection.
Sheikh Naim Qassem leapt over the catastrophe: a human toll of around 20,000 killed and wounded; the uprooting of the south through the displacement of one million citizens; the bulldozing of the front-line villages and their erasure from the map; direct Israeli occupation, by fire, of 10 percent of Lebanon's territory; and the threat that Nabatieh and Tyre, the largest cities of the south, would meet the fate of Bint Jbeil. The militia, whose military and security activity the government had banned, went on repeating tales of its "achievements on the battlefield."
The campaign accusing the authorities of treason for deciding to enter direct negotiations has expanded, even though this was "the least costly" option, according to Prime Minister Nawaf Salam - for protecting lives and extricating the country from the wars that have ravaged Lebanon since the 1969 Cairo Agreement, which brought misery to Lebanon and fueled migration. The campaign revealed the truth of its latent objectives: to entrench Iran's position as a partner in the Lebanese file in any settlement. The Israeli occupation continues, and illegitimate arms of Iranian hegemony remain. We have seen efforts to promote a "Doha 2" conference aimed at "reorganizing political power in Lebanon," which would consequently derail disarmament and the restoration of the project of a state capable of protecting people and land.
At the same time, the "framework agreement" constituted a decisive breakthrough. Among its most prominent points was that saving Lebanon begins with preventing Iran from negotiating on its behalf. It also gave credibility to President Joseph Aoun's assertion that nothing would be accepted "except the end of the occupation and the fall of foreign tutelage."
The "framework agreement" succeeded in drawing a path toward ending the Israeli occupation: With the Lebanese army restoring the authority of the state on the ground, the redeployment of the Israeli army outside Lebanese territory begins. In other words, there will be no security belt and no five points.
The "framework agreement" also affirmed that Israel has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon.
Accordingly, the "framework agreement" can be said to have overcome the pitfalls carried by the memorandum of understanding, which Tehran exploited to reconnect Lebanon to Iran; more importantly, it makes Israeli withdrawal, as well as the sustainable return of the displaced, possible.
That did not come without a price. Article 13, for example, is dangerous because it guarantees that the Lebanese will not prosecute the Israeli enemy for the crimes it committed against the Lebanese people. Although Lebanon was not the party to declare war, it nonetheless bears its catastrophic consequences. As a rule, the defeated party does not set all the terms for ending a war - denial and refusal to acknowledge reality do not change the outcome.
The salient fact is that since the 1949 Armistice Agreement, Lebanon has not once declared war on Israel. All the wars that have exhausted its citizens, weakened its authorities, split its people, and changed its demography, were the work of forces that violated its territory and infringed its sovereignty. Tehran alone decided through its proxy Hezbollah, which has always boasted that it is "Iran in Lebanon" to drag Lebanon into the last three wars that destroyed it: the 2006 war and the two "support" wars of 2023 and 2026, not to mention the criminal war against the Syrian people.
All the talk about coordination with Israeli forces and about Lebanon welcoming international support, American, for example, to ensure success in extending sovereignty over the "pilot areas," must be placed in its proper context. All of these commitments were made to achieve the central objective, which is withdrawal, even if it is gradual. The basis for saving Lebanon, beginning from its south, is for the authorities to reinforce their presence on the ground. The starting point for success in the experiment of the "pilot areas" is to secure Beirut and clear of weapons, thereby strengthening the role and standing of the Lebanese negotiator.
The solution begins with implementing Lebanese decisions to confine arms to the state, application of the constitution, UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and the agreement on the cessation of hostilities of November 27, 2024, which limited arms to six official bodies, as well as the decisions of the Lebanese government on August 5, 2025, and March 2, 2026. Certainly, there is no force in Lebanon stronger than its legitimate state.
Moving from a "framework agreement" to a final agreement will be a difficult and complex path, ultimately leading to the equation drawn by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio: full sovereignty for Lebanon over its territory and Israel's security. On the one hand, one cannot be dependent on the goodwill of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which is fighting its elections with the blood and land of the Lebanese, and which has already obtained American support for the strategy of "forward defense" as a response to the catastrophe of the "Al-Aqsa Flood": defending the borders of the Jewish state from the territory of others, through security belts and scorched earth. On the other hand, one cannot ignore Tehran's intentions, since it is too early to conclude that it has abandoned its project of "Greater Iran from the Caspian to the Mediterranean."
The firm Lebanese position, and Lebanese leaders’ insistence that nothing has priority over the recovery of the land and the ending of foreign hegemony, can strengthen the current approach. The course Lebanon is on has been strongly supported by Lebanon's brothers and friends in the world and enjoys American understanding.
Yet, latent threats remain, as does the possibility of Israel and Iran serving each other's ends to bring down this "framework," which cannot be undermined by a demonstration raising Iranian flags, nor by escalation in Nabatieh and its surroundings, as well as Tyre, or by Israel's continued criminal practices. This project will be vulnerable to collapse if Tehran decides to bring down the "understanding" and "reconciliation" with Washington. The tug-of-war over the Strait of Hormuz is dangerous and could, at some point, lead to a major eruption.
