The Lebanon file has reawakened an old question: Can the equation of regional conflict be separated from any international understanding? As Washington and Tehran try to gather their cards around a “memorandum of understanding” stipulating a permanent cessation of the war on all fronts, Lebanon stands at a line of contact that could wipe out everything built so carefully at the negotiating table.

The Lebanese Dilemma — A Party Above the State

The Lebanese government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel aimed at cutting off the path for Hezbollah — which has been in continuous conflict with Israel since the 1980s. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, the party insists on fighting under the pretext of occupying Shabaa Farms: territory Israel considers part of the Syrian Golan, while Hezbollah claims it as Lebanese land.

🇱🇧 The Lebanese Position

Beirut has signed an understanding with Israel aimed at disarming Hezbollah. But the Lebanese state lacks the coercive power to enforce it. Hezbollah holds parliamentary seats, controls significant civilian infrastructure, and fields a military force that, by many estimates, surpasses the Lebanese Armed Forces.

🇮🇷 The Iranian Calculation

Tehran views Hezbollah not as a foreign policy instrument but as a strategic pillar of its regional architecture. After the fall of Bashar al-Assad left Iran with a vacuum in Syria, Hezbollah has become more — not less — important to Tehran’s regional posture. Iran will not accept the party’s demise under bilateral pressure.

And herein lies the Lebanese dilemma: Hezbollah is not merely an armed faction. It is a political party with deputies in parliament and a military force that, by many estimates, exceeds the Lebanese Army itself. The 1989 Taif Agreement that ended the civil war prohibited any Lebanese party except Hezbollah from owning heavy weapons — an exception originally tied to Israel’s occupation of the south. Today, with that justification evaporated in the eyes of many Lebanese, the gun has become the document that complicates the entire political process.

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding was signed without a Lebanese representative. The Lebanese issue is not a binary one — and Washington has put itself in an awkward position by including Lebanon in a ceasefire that Beirut did not negotiate.
— Aladdin Muhammad Abkar
The MOU’s Fatal Structural Gap

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding called for a halt to the war on all fronts — including Lebanon — and linked that provision to an allowance for the Israeli army to operate inside Lebanese borders until Hezbollah was disarmed. But this formulation was drafted without Lebanon present at the table. Washington included the Lebanese file in a bilateral understanding between two external powers, leaving the internal Lebanese equation entirely unaddressed.

Hezbollah is bound to Iran by a close ideological and strategic alliance. Tehran — after the fall of Bashar al-Assad — feels the weight of a strategic vacuum in the region. Iran is a country with an ideological-political project that will not be easily overshadowed by any diplomatic agreement, and the preservation of Hezbollah is one of its central pillars. It is therefore highly unlikely that Tehran will accept the party’s dismantling under the pressure of a bilateral understanding concluded in Washington.

The Four Fault Lines That Could Break the MOU

  • Hezbollah disarmament: Israel insists on it; the Lebanese state cannot enforce it; Iran will not permit it. The triangle is irresolvable without a major shift from at least one party.
  • Absent Lebanese voice: Beirut was not party to the ceasefire framework that directly governs its territory — a procedural and political deficiency that Iran can exploit at any moment.
  • Strait of Hormuz leverage: Iran struck a Panama-flagged oil tanker near Oman’s shores just two weeks after the MOU was signed — a calculated signal that Tehran retains and will use its energy corridor leverage.
  • Houthi wildcard: If Lebanon descends into a Gaza-style conflict, Ansar Allah in Yemen is likely to intervene, turning a bilateral crisis into a multi-front regional war.
The Hormuz Signal — Iran’s Most Powerful Card

On the Gulf level, Tehran holds the most important card: disrupting oil traffic by closing or threatening the Strait of Hormuz. The signs appeared early. Just two weeks after the MOU was signed, an Iranian drone struck a Panama-flagged oil tanker near Oman’s shores — at a time when Tehran had effectively designated itself as the “Straits Police,” asserting a right to monitor and interdict shipping in the world’s most critical energy corridor.

The failure of Oman — a geographical partner in the strait and a traditionally neutral diplomatic actor — to bridge this latest gap is itself a significant diplomatic signal. When Muscat cannot mediate, the situation has moved beyond the normal channels of quiet Gulf diplomacy.

If Beirut insists on proceeding with the agreement with Israel, then Israel will seek — under international cover — to disarm Hezbollah by force. The expected outcome: a major war within Lebanon, similar to the Gaza scenario, paid for by civilians in displacement and death.
— Aladdin Muhammad Abkar
Analyst Assessment — The Straw That Breaks the MOU

FFN Analytical Perspective

Abkar’s analysis identifies a structural flaw at the heart of the US-Iran MOU that mirrors the historical failure of the Oslo framework: regional agreements that leave the most combustible local actors outside the negotiating room tend to collapse on contact with those actors’ reality. Hezbollah is not a variable that can be negotiated away in Washington without a parallel political process inside Lebanon — one that does not currently exist.

The MOU may hold on other fronts. The Strait of Hormuz may remain open. The nuclear inspection framework may inch forward. But Lebanon — with its unique combination of a fractured state, an armed movement with parliamentary legitimacy, and a direct Iranian strategic interest — represents the weakest seam in the fabric of the regional understanding. The Lebanese file may indeed be, as Abkar warns, the straw that breaks the MOU’s back.

The people of the region — Lebanese, Yemeni, Gulf — will bear the cost if it does. The theater will not remain confined to diplomatic communiqués. It will be lived on the streets of Beirut, in the shipping lanes of the Gulf, and in the mountain villages of southern Lebanon.

No calm looms on the horizon. Between an understanding over the table and a position under fire, Lebanon is held hostage by a regional equation that does not accept fragmented solutions — and that will not be resolved by any agreement that excludes the parties who control the guns on the ground.