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Ceasefire not included: Lebanon begins historic 'exploratory' talks with Israel
The Trump administration on Tuesday hosted Lebanon and Israel's top diplomats in Washington for the first direct talks between the two sides in more than three decades.
But a ceasefire was not on the agenda, and the main subject of concern, Hezbollah, had no representation, leaving Lebanese officials with little to no authority coming into the meeting.
"I know some of you were shouting questions about a ceasefire," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters.
"This is a lot more than just about that.
This is about bringing a permanent end to 20 or 30 years of Hezbollah’s influence in this part of the world and the - not just the damage that it’s inflicted on Israel - [but] the damage that it’s inflicted on the Lebanese people."
The US designated the group a foreign terrorist organisation in 1997, but it remains the foremost military actor in Lebanon, and is represented in the country's parliament.
Hezbollah was formed in 1982 to explicitly counter Israel's occupation and influence in Lebanon.
"All of the complexities of this matter are not going to be resolved in the next six hours.
But we can begin to move forward to create the framework where something can happen - something very positive, something very permanent," Rubio said.
The meeting ultimately lasted just two hours.
"It's certainly a good thing that the conversation took place, and it's a good thing that the United States agreed to host it, even though it was...at a low level, purely exploratory," Steven Simon, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton administration, told Middle East Eye.
"It's really difficult to see how these talks will alter the course of combat operations, which are what shape the diplomatic environment and the diplomatic possibilities," he added.
Inertia
Lebanon was represented by its ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israel was represented by its ambassador, Yechiel Leiter.
US ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa also joined the talks, as did the US ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, and State Department Counsellor, Michael Needham, who serves as the top assistant to Rubio.
"We discovered today that we're on the same side of the equation," Leiter told reporters after the meeting. "That's the most positive thing we could have come away with.
We are both united in liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah."
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The statement later released by State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott was not as explicit.
Washington reaffirmed its position that Israel has a "right to defend itself", while Israel demanded "disarming all non-state terror groups and dismantle all terror infrastructure in Lebanon".
Beirut called for all sides to uphold the Biden administration's November 2024 ceasefire agreement, which Israel has violated https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-has-attacked-lebanon-10000-times-during-one-year-truce">thousands of times.
That deal, however, does include the disarmament of Hezbollah as a next step.
Hezbollah has insisted that it cannot disarm while Israel remains a threat to Lebanon, and as Israeli officials normalise rhetoric about expanding Israel's borders northward.
Israel has also killed more than 2,000 people in Lebanon over the last six weeks.
The Lebanese national army, which has been assigned the task of disarmament, does not possess the training or the equipment to take on Hezbollah, which receives Iranian support.
On Monday, Hezbollah's secretary general, Naim Qassem, called for the Washington meeting to be cancelled.
"We reject negotiations with the usurping Israeli entity," he said. "These negotiations are futile and require a Lebanese agreement and consensus."
Loopholes
In Pigott's statement, the US said it aims to "exceed the scope of the 2024 agreement" and insisted that any "agreement to cease hostilities must be reached between the two governments, brokered by the United States, and not through any separate track".
The term "ceasefire" was not used in the text as a US government position.
It was only attributed to Lebanon's ambassador, who called "for a ceasefire and concrete measures to address and alleviate the severe humanitarian crisis".
A cessation of hostilities could imply that Israel would be permitted by the US to fire into Lebanon if it deems the move an act of self-defence.
The statement added that further negotiations "have the potential to unlock significant reconstruction assistance and economic recovery for Lebanon and expand investment opportunities for both countries".
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"All sides agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue," Pigott said.
Jeffrey Feltman, a former US ambassador to Lebanon, told MEE that neither side wanted to be seen by the Americans as refusing to talk, even if the conditions felt wholly unrealistic.
"One side can't do what the Israelis want.
The other side will refuse to do what the Lebanese want," he said.
"The Israelis are not going to stop hitting Lebanon right now, whether these talks go on or not, and I don't believe that President Trump will restrain Netanyahu in Lebanon any more than President Biden restrained Netanyahu in Gaza."
For the Lebanese, showing up is also an indication that they possess a level of sovereignty, despite their inability to speak for a large swath of Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah in the country's south.
Iran is now the far more powerful player that is trying to include Lebanon in a ceasefire agreement with the US and Israel, but Beirut does not want to be viewed under that umbrella.
"They're the meat in the sandwich, really, and they're not captains of their own fate," Simon, who is now at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told MEE of the Lebanese.
"Iran has a strong interest in folding the Lebanese conflict into the broader conflict...and if it's necessary for Iran to shove Hezbollah under the bus, I think they'll do that.
It's just [that] it would be a strategic necessity," he added.
"As long as Israeli combat operations are taking place on Lebanese soil, particularly given their intensity, the Israelis are weakening the credibility or the legitimacy of the Lebanese government on which they're depending to disarm Hezbollah," Simon asserted.
"It's counterproductive.
It's self-jamming."
Feltman, who is now at the Brookings Institution, argued that while a long-held "taboo" has been broken in Lebanon about engaging directly with Israel, the bottom line is that Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun remain incapacitated in practice.
"When Hezbollah refuses to go along with that, there's not much that they've been able to do to force Hezbollah to comply," he said.