Former US special envoy for Iran Rob Malley said the US-Iran memorandum is \u201cbrimming with ambiguity\u201d and warned that the most dangerous dispute centers on Lebanon, where Israel and Tehran read the agreement in sharply different ways.<\/p>\n
In an interview with PBS NewsHour, Malley said Israel believes it should retain freedom of military action and does not intend to withdraw from southern Lebanon, while Iran sees the deal as requiring a comprehensive ceasefire, respect for Lebanese sovereignty and an end to Israeli presence there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US doesn\u2019t really seem to know what it wants, other than to scramble repeatedly to salvage the deal,\u201d Malley said, describing Lebanon as \u201cthe most delicate piece of the deal at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the ceasefire\u2019s survival would depend on whether Washington puts enough pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, whether Netanyahu is prepared to pay the political cost of an imposed ceasefire, and whether Iran is willing to overlook limited violations.<\/p>\n
Malley said Persian Gulf states are more relieved by the end of the war than enthusiastic about the memorandum itself. \u201cThey are quite skeptical that this deal is going to come to fruition in terms of the greater, broader deal that\u2019s supposed to occur in 60 days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He argued that criticism should focus on the war rather than the memorandum needed to end it, saying the deal at least achieved two goals: ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Malley said it was \u201cvirtually impossible\u201d for Washington and Tehran to resolve all nuclear and sanctions disputes within 60 days, predicting the sides may instead seek an extension or limited agreements. He warned that a breakdown could lead to renewed war and another closure of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former US special envoy for Iran Rob Malley said the US-Iran memorandum is \u201cbrimming with ambiguity\u201d and warned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[3188,3294,3290,3287,3288,3291,3285,3289,3286,3292,239,17,3293],"class_list":["post-88255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-iran","tag-iran-and-china","tag-iran-covid","tag-iran-economy","tag-iran-government","tag-iran-media-iran-and-the-united-states","tag-iran-news","tag-iran-nuclear","tag-iran-politics","tag-iran-us","tag-middle-east","tag-switzerland","tag-us-sanctions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116780834941414976","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}