Israel launched airstrikes on Hezbollah positions in the Beirut suburbs on June 14, and the US response was essentially: nothing to see here, diplomacy is still on track.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the Israeli military action would not derail ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran over a nuclear deal.
Military force as diplomatic currency
Earlier in June, the Secretary tied US strikes on Iranian facilities directly to the nuclear negotiations, framing them not as provocations but as pressure tools designed to extract better terms from Tehran.
Hegseth has described US military operations as a means to “set the terms” for a nuclear agreement. That framing positions every airstrike, every naval deployment, every show of force as a chapter in a larger diplomatic narrative rather than a standalone act of aggression.
