US President Donald Trump and his Middle East team are making a grave error by failing to ensure Iran faces serious accountability, through tangible and direct consequences, for the actions and stances of its proxies and militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Indeed, Hezbollah in Lebanon has persisted in deliberately undermining Lebanese sovereignty to sideline the state. It remains a party armed, trained and funded by Tehran, and by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in particular.
Moreover, Iranian leaders publicly threaten the Lebanese state, army and people, proudly declaring Hezbollah an instrument and a weapon in their hands that they will not relinquish, even if the Iranian people starve or thirst. This stance by Iran’s ruling elite – perhaps deliberately – provokes further Israeli violations against Lebanese sovereignty. The effect would be further Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory, based on Tehran’s belief that this would lure Israel into an Iranian-laid trap, away from the direct confrontation both Iran and Israel fear.
Mr Trump must confront these designs with firmness – not with the financial, incentive-driven approach adopted by his envoy, Steve Witkoff. The US and its envoys, including the envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, should stop burying their heads in the sand and issue real warnings and punitive measures.
Yes, as past statements by US diplomats have suggested, Lebanese state officials are weak and many of them frequently shirk their own commitments. They kick the can down the road, avoiding the responsibility of implementing decisions, especially those related to the monopoly on arms and the disarmament of Hezbollah. Yes, the Lebanese army lacks the funding and training, as Mr Barrack has said, and cannot disarm Hezbollah as long as the IRGC threatens the army if it dares to do so.
But as long as Mr Barrack and those like him continue to deliberately undermine the morale of the Lebanese army instead of doubling efforts to empower it, even under strict conditions, monitoring and training, the narrative of the army’s impotence will persist. What is needed is not to demoralise and paralyse the army, but to insist that both military and civilian leadership understand that failure to act will cost them dearly, and that American, regional and international resolve to enhance the army’s capacity is serious and ready.
Meanwhile, scaremongering about army splits or civil war erupting if the army were to carry out its duties serves only to benefit the IRGC and Hezbollah’s narrative and goals. Similarly, the claim that Hezbollah’s arms are for “resistance” against Israel in defence of Lebanon is deceptive, because the weapons largely serve the Iranian project in the region rather than the defence of Lebanon.
Iran’s leadership wants to inflict heavier losses on Israel than those suffered by Iran while avoiding direct blame that would provoke retaliation on Iranian territory. To that end, it is reinvesting heavily in Hezbollah, drawing Lebanon deeper into its agenda.
Europe – particularly Germany, Britain and France – is guilty of deliberately ignoring Iran’s regional behaviour in pursuit of a nuclear deal. These governments were fully aware that excluding malign regional conduct from nuclear negotiations effectively blessed Iran’s proxy warfare at the expense of sovereignty and peoples across the region. It is time for a reckoning of conscience in these capitals, too.
Some will argue that Hezbollah is not merely a servant of Iran or a courier for its interests. Such talk is unconvincing. Indeed, the decision for Hezbollah to surrender its weapons in line with the Lebanese state’s sovereignty lies solely in Tehran. Senior Iranian officials, including the supreme leader’s adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, have said that Hezbollah’s existence is more important to Iran than bread is to Lebanon, an outrageous claim that shatters the effort to ensure that decisions of war and peace are made by the Lebanese state alone.
Indeed, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, encapsulated the regime’s mindset when he said that Israel’s material losses far outweighed Iran’s. But what kind of logic measures victory by the size of one’s losses? This line of thinking is evidence of the abject failure of Iran’s revolutionary ideology, which Tehran’s rulers have failed to export. It reflects Iran’s fear of direct confrontation with Israel, hence the establishment of proxies to absorb losses in other nations, thereby shielding the Iranian homeland.
Tehran’s rulers are also in denial about the bitter reality that their proxies no longer serve as an effective first line of defence for Iran, especially after their collapse in Syria. Iran is deteriorating internally, not only due to water scarcity but also due to the drying up of public patience. Even the formal military establishment is fed up with the IRGC’s dominance over foreign policy, which has dragged these proxies into military quagmires and bled Iran’s economy dry. This is a moment where American pressure could be very successful.
Unless Mr Trump and his team grasp this, they will remain fixated on the tree, blind to the forest.
