Monday, June 29, 2026
The Alliance
Welcome to the Hezbollah version of the Hokey Pokey. This is the same dance perfected by Hamas, and by Iran's regime as well. They do not negotiate in good faith, they do not adhere to agreements, and they use splits between allies with the effectiveness of narcissistic teenagers who find cracks in parental fronts on discipline.
That is what makes this story so bad, no matter what words were used in this conversation. Neither the US nor Israel can afford to let Iran split this coalition, especially at this stage. Trump seems to want a deal with Iran more than he wants an actual end to terrorism against the Israelis, and the Iranians are taking that as a lesson every day of the so-called ceasefire already. Letting White House aides leak this story to the press unnecessarily exposes a split between the two allies that the Islamists are already all too eager to exploit. Whatever momentary political benefit comes from this leak will be paid for in blood if and when the IRGC succeeds in exploiting it to get the diplomatic escape it desperately seeks. Hezbollah's offensive in Lebanon is designed to produce this very result, and if the White House can't see that, then Netanyahu has every reason to start acting on his own to end the threat on his northern border the best he can.
