Tehran and Tel Aviv on Monday announced the suspension of mutual strikes, signaling the subsiding of a new wave of military tensions that had been on the verge of igniting a full-scale war in the Middle East. Simultaneously, reports point to a growing strategic rift between Trump and Netanyahu — with the U.S. president, concerned about the disruption of his peace plan with Tehran and the continuation of his political bankruptcy in domestic public opinion, calling for Netanyahu to be restrained, while the mounting costs of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Washington’s inability to achieve its strategic objectives in the region have produced a new balance of “deterrence of terror” in which Iran’s missiles serve as the primary variable in West Asia’s security and economic equations.
Iran and the Zionist regime announced on Monday that the strikes between them — which had threatened to reignite the Middle East war — had been halted. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, announced hours after Tehran declared it had suspended its military action against Tel Aviv that the attack on that front had also been brought under control.
Tehran on Sunday launched missiles toward the occupied Palestinian territories in response to the Zionist regime’s extensive attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which prompted the Israeli regime to carry out retaliatory strikes — despite Donald Trump’s efforts to dissuade Netanyahu from attacking — leading to another round of Iranian missile strikes before Tehran announced a ceasefire would take effect.
Iran has for weeks been warning that the Zionist regime’s attacks on Lebanon would compel it to act. In this regard, Tehran announced on Monday that it would strike again if Israel continued its attacks in Lebanon.
Why Did Iran Defend Lebanon?
It must be said that Iran’s decisive response was not an act of aggression; rather, it constitutes a vital necessity for salvaging the ceasefire agreement, restoring the balance of terror, and preventing the gradual erosion of the resistance front. This operation sent a clear message to the world that the security of Lebanon and Iran is a shared red line that will be defended. Iran explicitly declared that Lebanon’s security is inseparable from Iran’s own security, and that an attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut cannot be regarded merely as a Lebanese internal matter or a limited conflict between the Israeli regime and Hezbollah.
In the tension-laden region of West Asia — where international institutions are effectively either incapacitated or aligned with the aggressor — the balance of terror and power is the only guarantor of survival and peace. The launch of Iranian missiles against the bases of those waging aggression against Lebanon has redefined the power equation and demonstrates that in this region, missiles can only be countered with missiles. A reality the world cannot ignore is that six months ago the Israeli regime could have carried out any action in Lebanon without Iranian intervention, but following Trump and Netanyahu’s war against Iran, Tehran now possesses sufficient capability to influence the Israeli regime’s actions along its own borders.
Immediately following the strikes, Iran turned to diplomacy through intermediaries such as Pakistan, Qatar, and Egypt to demonstrate that it has no desire for the continuation of war and is ready for negotiations. Although the danger of full-scale war has not been entirely eliminated, it appears that new rules have been established under which any destabilization by the Israeli regime against Iran’s allies — particularly Lebanon — will directly target its security, and the United States has little appetite to back the Israeli regime.
The reality is that the United States does not want war with Iran to resume, because Washington, in cooperation with the Zionist regime, has failed to achieve its strategic objectives in the Middle East. More than 100 days have passed since the commencement of the joint and ambitious military operation by the United States and the Israeli regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The initial strikes resulted in the martyrdom of Iran’s supreme leader and dozens of senior military and political officials; however, these strikes did not bring about regime change in Iran as expected, and the Islamic Republic continues to exercise full control over the situation. Immediately after the war began, the world witnessed Tehran’s retaliatory missile and drone strikes against the Zionist regime and U.S. military bases in Persian Gulf countries, as well as Tehran’s military dominance over the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran’s military dominance over the Strait of Hormuz led to maritime traffic disruption and blocked this strategic chokepoint — through which normally 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes.
It must be stated that this confrontation resulted in a defeat for the United States — an outcome that irreversibly weakens America’s global standing and will trigger a chain reaction across the world. Even when a war begins with popular support (as many do), failure to achieve its key objectives can affect public sentiment in ways that limit leaders’ ability to conduct future military actions. And when wars are conducted without initial public support (as was the case with the latest confrontation with Iran), the public backlash against those who initiated and supported it can be severe. Military defeats typically erode public trust not only in the governments that oversee them, but in the institution of government as a whole. The public mood darkens and confidence in the future diminishes.
Americans are gradually waking up and asking themselves why their tax money should finance a genocide while many of them cannot afford healthcare or higher education and suffer from homelessness and other hardships. In addition, the American public is deeply angered by rising prices and fuel costs, and the Trump administration must now answer to American public opinion and sentiment.
Has Trump Run Out of Patience with Netanyahu?
The fierce dispute that erupted last week between Trump and Netanyahu reflects the U.S. president’s deep concern about the continuation of the Israeli regime’s military attacks against Hezbollah, which could derail his peace plan with Iran. While the Trump administration has invested considerable political capital in efforts to reach an agreement with Tehran to end more than three months of hostilities, Netanyahu has shown no willingness to end his brutal assault on Lebanon.
On the contrary, as Iran-peace negotiations entered a sensitive phase, Netanyahu escalated the attacks, seized control of the strategically important Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon, and targeted Hezbollah positions in Beirut. With Iran insisting that a ceasefire in Lebanon must be one of the key conditions for achieving a long-term ceasefire in the Persian Gulf, Netanyahu’s intransigence has become a serious problem for the White House — to the point that Trump resorted to profanity in a recent phone call with him. Although Iran has made the implementation of a ceasefire in Lebanon one of its primary demands, the Trump administration is focused on other priorities such as reopening the vital commercial waterway of the Strait of Hormuz and constraining Tehran’s nuclear program.
For this reason, Trump, in response to Iran’s strike on the Zionist regime, emphasized that his priority is to prevent Israeli retaliation. Following Iran’s initial strikes he said: “I’m calling Bibi now and telling him not to retaliate.”
To date there is no indication that Trump has threatened to withhold missile defense systems from Israel due to the resumption of hostilities; however, the question remains: for how long can the United States continue to dispatch interceptor missile stocks to defend the usurper regime in a war that Trump said he would not initiate?
Why Do Arab Countries — Particularly Saudi Arabia — Want the War with Iran to End?
Given the long list of grievances Saudi Arabia has harbored against Iran over the years, many are puzzled as to why the kingdom is supporting diplomatic efforts to end a war that could diminish the power of its major rival.
Despite the tense and competitive relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia over recent decades, Riyadh was opposed to the war before it began and is now working to bring it to an end. More than 60 days after the ceasefire was announced on April 8, the war continues — albeit at a slower pace. The Strait of Hormuz has now effectively been closed for nearly 100 days, with only a few exceptions. Thousands of ships around the world and on both sides of this waterway are stranded at sea. The fate of the global economy — along with the livelihoods and welfare of billions of people worldwide — depends on its reopening.
This partly explains why Saudi Arabia wants the war to end. In recent years, the kingdom has been pursuing diplomatic solutions to complex issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Yemen war, and its longstanding dispute with Iran. But beyond this principled stance, the war and the closure of the Hormuz waterway have devastated the economies of the Persian Gulf states and other parts of the world — including many poor and fragile countries.
The Persian Gulf dispute demonstrates how the region and the world are intertwined, as the Persian Gulf is deeply embedded in global economics and finance. This is a prime example of the intersection between geopolitics and geoeconomics. The Gulf Cooperation Council economies, to varying degrees, have been directly impacted by this crisis. In addition to reduced or halted exports, there is also physical damage from Iranian strikes and the invisible costs of missed opportunities — due to delayed or scaled-back investment decisions.
