Why US-Iran ceasefire is unlikely to last. The reason is in Lebanon

After more than a month of the US and Israel exchanging fire with Iran, the warring parties announced a two-week ceasefire on Wednesday. The fragility of the truce is visible in the points of ceasefire shared by Iran. While it has sought the cessation of attacks across the Middle East, Israel has refused to stop its combat operations in Lebanon. This could be the spark for a fresh round of strikes and counterstrikes well within the two-week term of the ceasefire.

The truce, announced by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is set to last two weeks. Delegations from Tehran and Washington are expected to travel to Islamabad on Friday for talks aimed at forging a lasting peace deal. While the pause offers a much-needed respite for almost everyone in the Middle East after weeks of intense strikes and disruption to Gulf energy infrastructure, one party remains determined to continue military operations in Lebanon. And that is Israel.

Announcing the ceasefire, Sharif described it as "an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere." However, in a statement on X, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, while supporting the US decision to suspend strikes on Iran, explicitly said "the two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon".

This is not only contrary to the terms of the ceasefire as presented by Pakistan, but also directly opposes one of the key points of Iran’s 10-point proposal, that is a halt to military operations against its allied armed groups across the region, including Hezbollah.

Questions are already being raised about how fragile the ceasefire is and whether it can even last its two-week timeline. Even as the announcement was made, the Associated Press (AP) reported missile alerts in the UAE, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, with a gas processing facility in Abu Dhabi set ablaze after incoming Iranian fire on Wednesday. Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz.

DO PEOPLE EXPECT THE IRAN-US CEASEFIRE TO LAST TWO WEEKS?

In an interview with CNN, journalist Fareed Zakaria argued that the ceasefire was fragile due to a lack of trust between Tehran and Washington, noting that the US "essentially started bombing Iran in the middle of those negotiations" (referring to the earlier US-Iran talks in Geneva in February).

"So it's not surprising that even though there does seem to be some kind of an agreement, it's very fragile, and it's probably going to take a while to work out," Zakaria said.

And in a sign of the lack of global confidence in the ceasefire, the Indian Embassy in Tehran issued a new advisory on Wednesday asking nationals still in Iran to leave the country quickly, despite the ceasefire coming into effect the same day.

The question is, will a ceasefire, already being described as fragile, survive if Israel keeps boots on the ground in Lebanon?

WHAT IS ISRAEL DOING IN LEBANON?

Any peace deal between the US and Iran remains contingent on the survival of the ceasefire, which calls for the cessation of hostilities everywhere, including Lebanon. The problem is that Israel, while supportive of the agreement with Iran, has made clear that its operations in Lebanon will continue.

On March 2, the Israeli military launched a ground invasion of Lebanon to establish what it calls a buffer zone up to the Litani River in order to deter attacks by Hezbollah, Iran’s powerful proxy in the region.

The military offensive came after Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel, which the group said were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, as well as Israel’s near-daily violations of a ceasefire agreed in Lebanon in November 2024.

According to Lebanese authorities, cited by Al Jazeera, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 1,500 people since March 2 and displaced more than 1.2 million.

IRAN DEMANDS END TO ATTACKS AGAINST ALLIES AS PART OF CEASEFIRE

On the other side, Tehran has demanded in its 10-point proposal "the cessation of war on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon."

In the statement issued by Iran’s Supreme Security Council, Tehran also emphasised "the necessity of ending the war against all components of the Axis of Resistance".

The Axis of Resistance, referred to as Axis of Evil by the West, is the network of armed proxies supported by Iran across the Middle East. Among them is Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s most capable allies, which was founded in 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and has been a persistent thorn on Jerusalem's side.

This puts Iran in direct opposition to Israel, which appears determined to eliminate the threat posed by Hezbollah once and for all. It also stands contrary to Iran’s 10-point proposal, which US President Donald Trump described as "workable".

This puts the entire ceasefire agreement and future peace talks in jeopardy. Continued Israeli operations in Lebanon are likely to trigger Hezbollah retaliation, which Tehran could then use as justification to abandon the ceasefire and resume attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, as it had promised, bringing things back to square one. So, the two-week US-Iran ceasefire might face the biggest test in Lebanon. Only a short time will tell if it even holds for two weeks.

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