Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Benjamin Netanyahu has described a new agreement with Lebanon as a major win for Israel. (Reuters: Clodagh Kilcoyne)
On Friday night, a triumphant Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on social media declaring a major victory in negotiations with Lebanon over the war Israel is waging against militant group Hezbollah.
"This is also a major blow to Iran," he declared.
And while it was obvious why Israel's prime minister would frame the announcement in such a way, after weeks of domestic political attacks over his handling of the conflict, it immediately highlighted a contradiction in the deals the US was behind.
In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of diplomatic wrangling aimed at trying to drag the Middle East back to some form of relative peace, with the US and its dealmaker-in-chief Donald Trump heavily involved.
The first clause in the agreement the US president signed to end the war with Iran, which Israel and Lebanon were not parties to, explicitly said there needed to be an immediate end to fighting on all fronts.
That included Lebanon, and the deal went further to demand respect for territorial integrity.
However, the statement appeared at odds with Israel's ongoing occupation of territory it seized in southern Lebanon — the so-called "security zone" — during its invasion of the country in March.
Iran certainly saw it in those terms, demanding an Israeli withdrawal. Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon, did too.
And, a week later, that contradiction was reinforced in a separate deal between Israel and Lebanon, which was brokered by the United States.
Two deals at odds with each other
Under the terms of that agreement, Israel would maintain its presence in the "security zone" for as long as Hezbollah — considered a terrorist organisation by many countries, including Australia — refused to lay down its weapons and continued to pose a threat to Israel's security.
Donald Trump has been playing the role of dealmaker-in-chief in the Middle East in recent weeks. (Reuters: Evan Vucci)
Respecting territorial integrity in one deal and allowing occupation in the other doesn't seem to marry up.
The agreement also said that only the Lebanese state had the authority to make calls about the country's future, in what Israel's leaders saw as a warning against Tehran.
"Iran is trying to force us into a withdrawal from southern Lebanon by force," Netanyahu told Israeli reporters on Saturday.
"Lebanon, Israel, and the US are essentially saying to Iran: 'This is none of your business. You have no status here.'
"You have no involvement and no role — not you, not Hezbollah, and not any terrorist organisation."
As far as ambitions go, there are worthy goals in both deals — particularly if, in a perfect world, they go some way to achieving a level of stability in Lebanon unseen for decades as the country lurched from crisis to crisis.
But the deals were immediately at odds with each other, and show how the Trump administration is running different approaches depending on who it is talking to at any given moment.
In the Iran deal, Washington gave Tehran a say over the conflict in Lebanon as a precondition for broader regional peace, while cutting out Israel and Lebanon's governments.
And in the Lebanon deal, Washington has given Israel and Lebanon their say for localised peace, while cutting out Iran and its puppet, Hezbollah.
The latter agreement also relies on the Lebanese state and its armed forces having the power to force Hezbollah to yield, as opposed to harbouring a strong desire to remove the group — something Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have spent a lot of time talking about since taking office.
In the absence of that ability, the Lebanon deal could entrench Israeli occupation in the country's south — which in turn could continue to fuel the cycle of instability that has led to this point.
Over the weekend, attacks from Israel in southern Lebanon continued. So too did Hezbollah's retaliation, killing another Israeli soldier in the process.
Even with now two agreements, the fighting is continuing.
Mixed messages
The original Iran deal also failed to make any mention of curtailing Tehran's missile and drone capabilities.
That's despite it being a stated war aim for the Trump administration when it opened fire on Iran back on February 28 alongside its Israeli partners.
The absence of this topic fuelled anxiety for the Gulf states, which copped a battering from Iranian attacks at the height of the war and are now having to rethink their approach to dealing with such a threat in the future.
When Trump was asked about Iran's missile arsenal in the hours before signing the Tehran deal, he replied: "If other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for [Iran] not to have some.
"A ballistic missile is not the same thing as what we're talking about when we talk nuclear.
"But if Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it's OK."
A week later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in the Gulf reassuring the US's partners in the region that the issue had not been forgotten.
"We're not going to do anything that undermines the security of our allies, our longstanding allies in the region," he said in Kuwait.
The next day in Bahrain, Secretary Rubio insisted that the Iran deal was the starting point in their negotiations rather than being an "all-encompassing document".
Keeping the Gulf states onside after the damage they experienced during the war, and have continued to feel in recent days during more US and Iran exchanges of fire, is crucial for the Trump administration.
But running seemingly conflicting arguments in talks with Iran, compared to partners across the region, only adds to the fears the relative peace that is holding now could be short-lived.
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