Officially, the 60-day ceasefire between Iran and the United States, established under the memorandum of understanding, has expired. In reality, it was never a true ceasefire, as it was punctuated by an exchange of strikes, further compounded by announcements from both sides that the memorandum of understanding is either no longer valid or, at the very least, suspended. It is no exaggeration to say that a dense fog hangs over the region, mingled with the scent of blood and scenes of rubble.
In the theaters of war launched in the wake of the Sinwar’s Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, a state of anticipation heavily laden with doubt prevails. Many are speaking of the upcoming mid-term election in the US in early November. There is no debate that President Donald Trump’s administration is the primary actor in this open lake of crises.
In fact, it is an administration that is both confounding and confounded. The rhetoric employed by the master of the White House doubles the fog surrounding near and distant goals. He threatens strikes unprecedented since World War II, only to retreat to relying on "economic strangulation." The image with which Trump will emerge from the mid-terms is also blurred in advance. Some believe the elections will weaken him, while others believe that he will have nothing left to lose afterward, and that he may double down on defending his image and that of his era, refusing to accept the image of a loser.
The second milestone is the legislative elections in Israel on October 27, which are crucial for Benjamin Netanyahu. There is no denying that Netanyahu has been an important and highly dangerous player in recent years. It is enough to recall here that under Netanyahu’s tenure, the Mossad stole Iran's nuclear archive on the last day of January 2018. Trump then withdrew from Obama's nuclear deal with Iran eight days after Netanyahu himself revealed some of the contents of those stolen documents. Furthermore, it cannot be ignored that America went to war with Iran alongside Israel.
Despite opinion polls confirming a decline in the current prime minister's popularity, the complexities of the Israeli political landscape and the game of government coalition-building make predicting the fate of this dangerous player difficult. There is no doubt that Netanyahu's survival will certainly leave a clear mark on the Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran files, but his absence does not mean that his successors will abandon his goals of dismantling the weapons of Hamas and Hezbollah, among other issues.
A third element, no less influential, is the Iranian position. It is difficult to predict the choices of Mojtaba Khamenei. The current Iranian Supreme Leader is a wounded man; the war has left wounds on his body, his family, and his country’s aura and project. It remains hard to predict whether the military appointments he has made will push the crisis toward a new round of war. Some believe that certain military figures assigned to sensitive positions are advocates of pushing brinkmanship to the extreme, if not displaying suicidal tendencies.
Iran's handling of the Strait of Hormuz in no way suggests the feasibility of reaching realistic solutions. What is on the table is not the nuclear issue alone. The settlement will define Iran's position in the region and its relationship with its "allied armies," thereby affecting the fate of the maps where these factions are stationed. Qaani's advice to Iraqi factions not to accept the Zaidi government's policy of confining weapons to the state mirrors the advice directed at Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Furthermore, the Iranian army commander's announcement of a financial reward for any military personnel who kills or captures an American soldier intensifies questions about how tense the next phase will be.
It is clear from the course of the US-sponsored Lebanese-Israeli negotiations that anticipation remains the dominant factor. Amid this atmosphere of waiting, Israel continues to commit unprecedented crimes in southern Lebanon. It is no longer content with assassinating individuals; it has gone as far as wiping out entire villages, rendering them uninhabitable for the foreseeable future through systematic destruction and altering their geographic features.
There are those in Beirut who believe that the Netanyahu government wanted to replicate the Gaza scenario across the entirety of southern Lebanon, were it not for the pressure exerted on it by the Trump administration. While it is true that for half a century southern Lebanon has hung on the ropes of confrontations that exceed its capacity, the current phase appears more dangerous than anything that preceded it.
The Lebanese economic collapse is deepening, and Lebanese fragmentation is widening. The return of Hezbollah from the war it chose to enter - against the will of the majority - is entirely inseparable from Iranian choices. The Lebanese dilemma is profound; a glaring imbalance in the power structure makes reclaiming the occupied territory by force impossible, while the price demanded to exit through negotiations is rejected by Hezbollah and Iran. Consequently, keeping Lebanon hanging on the ropes of anticipation only doubles its deterioration and disintegration.
Lebanon is not the only map left hanging. Iraq is making serious efforts to rebuild its institutions and reclaim the decision-making power over war and peace. The journey does not appear easy at all in light of the resistance from certain militias and the continuous drone attacks against targets in Kurdistan. Iraq, too, hangs on the ropes of the American-Iranian confrontation, amid political divisions and an economic crisis that is anything but simple.
The Yemeni map is also left hanging amid the Houthis' insistence on playing regional Iranian roles in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and on Yemeni soil itself. Syria almost constitutes an exception. Thus far, President Ahmed al-Sharaa has managed to prioritize Syria as a state over Syria as an arena, through a wide network of relationships, alliances, and realistic calculations.
It is a phase of anticipation heavily fraught with danger extending from the Strait of Hormuz and its surroundings to the maps left hanging and those left anxious.
