Trump calls for restraint after Israel launches fresh airstrikes on Beirut | US-Israel war on Iran
Donald Trump was forced to call for restraint on Sunday after Israel launched new airstrikes on Beirut as mediators tried to conclude negotiations on a preliminary peace deal between Iran and the United States that would definitively end the three-month war in the Middle East.
Trump downplayed Israel’s new attacks but said “all parties must step back.”
“We are very close to an Agreement that will bring peace to the region, including Lebanon… There should be no more attacks by Israel anywhere in Lebanon, but there should also be no attacks on Israel by any other party, including Hezbollah. This could be the beginning of a long and beautiful peace – Let’s not break it!” The US president shared this on his social media site.
Trump had previously suggested that the US could sign a deal with Iran on Sunday, but as evening came in the Middle East there were no signs of progress. Instead, Iranian officials threatened military intervention in an Israeli attack on Beirut that destroyed a building in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, killing three people and wounding six others.
Israel said it targeted senior Hezbollah commanders after the militant Islamist group with close ties to Tehran launched three missiles into northern Israel.
An attack by Israeli forces on Beirut a week ago triggered a brief but intense new round of conflict between Iran and Israel and temporarily destabilized negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Tehran’s chief negotiator and speaker of Iran’s parliament, wrote on Sunday on
“These crimes will not remain unanswered,” Gen. Mohammad Jafar Asadi, deputy commander of Iran’s joint command headquarters, said, according to the official Mizan news agency.
Tehran has insisted that any peace deal must cover “all fronts” and thus include conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a broad offensive and occupied part of the south.
“The Iranians don’t trust the Americans and they don’t believe the Americans will keep the Israelis in check. I don’t think the Iranians care about Lebanon, but they do care about Hezbollah… and they have spoilers on their side who don’t want a deal,” said HA Hellyer, a regional expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.
Regional officials said Qatari mediators went to Tehran on Sunday to finalize the terms of the memorandum of understanding, which is expected to be signed electronically.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that this preliminary agreement would oblige Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which carried about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquid gas supplies before the war, to all shipping. At the same time, the United States will lift its own blockade of Iran and allow Tehran to sell oil, providing some relief to Iran’s rapidly deteriorating economy.
But the memorandum does not appear to address the most controversial issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program, that would be addressed within a 60-day period that would lead to a more comprehensive agreement.
Observers expressed skepticism that the complex negotiations could be successfully concluded in less than two months, pointing out that the 2015 US-Iran deal that restricted Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief took almost 10 times longer and that the negotiations were conducted by large teams of technical experts.
“I doubt we’ll see all of this sorted out in 60 days,” said Alia Brahimi of the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
Israel’s reaction to the general outlines of the resulting agreement was harsh; The draft agreement includes widespread concerns that it does not include conditions that would force Iran to restrict its ballistic missile arsenal or support for regional militant movements such as Hezbollah. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly backed Trump but faces a tough re-election fight later this year.
Hezbollah fired a missile at Israel on March 2, two days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran and killed then-religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israeli troops have since deepened their occupation of Lebanon further than at any time in more than a quarter of a century.
Avi Ashkenazi wrote in the mass-market Maariv newspaper: “This is a massive failure. A total collapse. Iran has emerged as the undisputed big winner.”
Jacob Nagel, Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, called the draft agreement a “big mistake.”
Critics in Trump’s own Republican party, which is fighting high fuel prices and an unpopular war ahead of the midterm elections, also criticized the resulting deal.
Analysts say that even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, the relief in the world economy will occur gradually. Safe passage for ships stranded in the narrow waterway is far from guaranteed, and it will take months to fully repair infrastructure damaged during the conflict.
Trump is expected to discuss the issue of demining the strait at the G7 summit, which will start on Monday.
