Donald Trump<\/a> even said the US was \u201cspeaking to Hezbollah\u201d and that he \u201cwould like to meet\u201d Iran\u2019s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.<\/p>\nStory continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s linkage of ceasefire with Lebanon, not Gaza<\/p>\n
Lebanon is not important to Iran solely due to the formidable value that Hezbollah brings to Tehran\u2019s strategic power projection. Presently, the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire has a new characteristic \u2014 a fragile agreement that Iran knows Israel will inevitably violate. This provides Tehran a unique strategic option: to determine that Israel\u2019s attacks in Lebanon warrant a tighter chokehold on Hormuz or a resumption of its missile attacks, at any point when Tehran perceives Washington to be slow-pedaling a deal.<\/p>\n
Already by June 4, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reaffirmed that, \u201cthis war will end only when it ends in Lebanon as well\u201d. Combined with Rezaee\u2019s statements, it is clear that while protecting Hezbollah is a clear Iranian objective, Lebanon principally serves as a pressure point to force Washington towards concessions vis-\u00e0-vis Iran itself.<\/p>\n
For perspective, Iran has refrained from officially linking the ceasefire with Israel\u2019s war on Palestine, or at least making it an immediate imperative. Apart from reports from the semi-official\u00a0Tasnim News\u00a0that Tehran also requires Israel to cease hostilities in Gaza, Iran\u2019s negotiating posture since April has prioritised Lebanon. This is despite Israel\u2019s Gaza campaign pre-dating the current war on Lebanon, causing significantly greater casualty figures, and prompting international investigations into Israeli conduct. Iran\u2019s regional posture has also been articulated historically as integrally tied with Palestine (Jerusalem or Al Quds).<\/p>\n
Among other things, this reinforces Iran\u2019s awareness that Washington is more likely to pressure Israel on Lebanon than on Palestine; a compromise Iran is willing to make for its immediate strategic needs. The alternative would be a bogged-down Iran with reduced bargaining space in the face of the marginal likelihood of Israel withdrawing from Gaza, even if Tehran threatens military action.<\/p>\n
Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Ultimately, these developments still retain both Iranian and American preference for a deal. However, it is now increasingly evident that just as Washington sought favourable terms through military action in March, Tehran is inching closer to adopting a similar posture. Functionally, this implies that organic pressures are building within the US-Iran equation that will either decisively break the ceasefire, or force Washington and Tehran into at least an interim arrangement, pending a larger deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 min readNew DelhiJun 8, 2026 06:35 AM IST As\u00a0the\u00a0US-Iran war touches 100 days, the two countries have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[48360,24047,34,69],"class_list":["post-150106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tehran","tag-an-expert-explains","tag-express-explained","tag-iran","tag-tehran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116712084962434193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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