The Strategic Trap Closing Around Netanyahu

By Elijah J. Magnier –

Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the final agreement of the US-Iranian framework between the two sides. If the outlines of the emerging American-Iranian framework are confirmed, Benjamin Netanyahu may soon find himself confronting the greatest strategic, political, and personal contradiction of his entire career. His only card left may be to hammer Lebanon heavily, hoping to provoke a chain reaction that causes the failure of the Iranian-US agreement, because any halt to Israel’s destruction of Lebanon without the defeat of Hezbollah would risk marking the end of his political career. Israel immediately answered it will not withdraw its forces from the occupied territories in south of Lebanon. Donald Trump has already suggested that Netanyahu may not take part in the next elections and may not return as prime minister, a prediction immediately rejected by Netanyahu’s Likud party, which challenged Trump by insisting that Netanyahu will run and win. The problem is not simply that a diplomatic agreement may emerge after a major military confrontation. The problem is that many of the reported elements of the proposed framework appear fundamentally incompatible with the objectives publicly articulated by both Netanyahu and Trump before and during the war.

The reported framework would leave Iran’s enrichment programme, missile programme, regional alliance network, political system, and military leadership intact while simultaneously offering phased sanctions relief and access to frozen assets. If confirmed, this would represent not the dismantlement of Iranian power but its management. It is important to remind that it is only a framework and the final agreement is still far from being concluded.