Washington has rebuilt the “bridge of return” between New York and Beirut. U.S. President Donald Trump has lifted restrictions on air travel, a move that could open new prospects for tourism, trade, and investment between the two countries.
Yet Trump has not restricted Israel’s freedom of movement in Lebanon. Instead, he has given Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to act freely on the southern front, while retaining the option of playing the margins of negotiations and pushing them beyond the Israeli elections.
Will the tripartite framework meet the same fate as the Board of Peace agreement? Around this time, the latter marks its first anniversary with Israel having made no commitment to implementing the provisions signed in the presence of more than twenty world leaders.
Trump chairs the international Board of Peace, yet he has failed to exercise his veto over Netanyahu. At the same time, he has used his veto against International Criminal Court decisions and imposed a package of sanctions on the court. He has also delivered what amounts to a death sentence against the Nobel Peace Prize, after the award was granted to a South African-born judge at the International Court of Justice who acknowledged Israel’s commission of genocidal acts against Palestinians. Trump launched a fierce attack on the prize committee, describing its decision as an indelible stain of shame.
These double standards have left Lebanon’s file exposed, with opposition to extending UNIFIL’s mandate and efforts to sideline any European role as witness and monitor, effectively leaving Lebanon vulnerable to Israel.
As for Iran, the picture is no less complicated. No victor has declared absolute victory, and no defeated party has raised the flag of surrender. Caught somewhere in between, Trump is heading into the midterm elections, at times wielding the hammer of war and telling Tehran to give him everything he wants—or face the threat of disappearing altogether. At other times, he lowers the bar and promises to resolve the crisis one way or another, without ruling out an agreement.
As his position swings between postponement and threats, polling figures and opinion surveys point to gains for the Democrats.
Against this backdrop, Trump is manipulating traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, while oil flows are being measured at levels that exceed tanker traffic before the war. This raises an obvious question: Why are oil prices still high despite the increased flow of crude into global markets?
Perhaps the answer lies in intertwined American and Iranian interests, whether directly or indirectly through “shadow fleets” operating their voyages while both sides collect transit fees—either through tanker insurance companies or through a smuggling network allegedly operating with both sides turning a blind eye.
The possibilities are many, but the outcome may be one. In the logic of conflicts, solutions emerge when interests align.
In a lengthy phone call, the Kremlin has forcefully entered the effort to resolve the U.S.–Iranian dispute. Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian’s vision for resolving the crisis to President Trump. And since every initiative comes at a price, Putin proposed opening the way for diesel supplies and exports of oil and petroleum products to the United States and global markets in exchange for lifting sanctions on Russia.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Lebanon, meanwhile, has condensed the entire scene into an explosive discovery. Authorities have announced the seizure of nearly half a ton of high explosives, alongside metal balls and moulds that have raised suspicions they could be used to manufacture explosive devices. The intended use of the materials and their destructive potential remain subject to expert assessment—and to a landscape wide open to every possibility.