Commentary
The US and Iran's interim deal to end the war might prove unattainable if Israel continues its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, says former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.
People gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Jun 14, 2026. (Photo: AFP/Ibrahim Amro)
18 Jun 2026 05:59AM
TEL AVIV: The ceasefire that was reportedly just agreed between the United States and Iran reflects US President Donald Trump’s desperation to escape the quagmire that he created. Gone is the muddled array of objectives he touted in the war’s early days. All the Trump administration has reportedly secured in the new agreement is a promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war, and plans for new negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, which was already under discussion. But even these pared-down goals might prove unattainable if Israel continues its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon.Trump is already fed up with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was Netanyahu who advised him in 2018 to abandon the nuclear deal then-President Barack Obama had reached with Iran three years earlier, putting Trump on the hook to deliver a better one.Netanyahu also convinced Trump to launch the current war by touting a heady vision of the world’s two most powerful air forces quickly annihilating the Islamic Republic’s military and nuclear installations and toppling a regime that had long been a thorn in their sides. Now, Netanyahu is the last obstacle to a deal that would allow Trump to leave the resulting nightmare behind.
