Only a few days after the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding, Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed again. But it wasn’t American forces that drew the sharp response from Tehran. Instead, the Iranians said Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon meant America violated the deal. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are party to the MOU, but the “immediate and permanent termination” of their conflict in Lebanon is listed as a condition in the document’s first article.
Professional diplomats would have insisted on more specificity about what that language meant. It’s unlikely seasoned American negotiators would have agreed without getting Israeli buy-in first, but the Trump regime disdains that sort of expertise. This disregard for detail fits President Donald Trump’s consistent approach to conflict diplomacy: seek the minimum that can be called a “peace deal,” punting on core issues and excluding conflict participants as needed. Produce something that’s more vision than plan and proclaim peace. Public praise and positive press will follow. Actual follow-through will not.
A closer examination of the MOU shows how predictable it was that Lebanon would become a sticking point.
A closer examination of the MOU shows how predictable it was that Lebanon would become a sticking point. A ceasefire usually means combatants freeze in place and negotiate more permanent arrangements, but the somewhat ambiguous language in the MOU “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon” arguably demands Israeli withdrawal to prewar lines.
But neither Israel nor Hezbollah are a party to the MOU or participated in the talks leading up to deal nor its hasty signing, so neither feels bound by it. Israel says it retaliated to a deadly Hezbollah strike in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli military set up a “buffer zone” it intends to keep. Hezbollah says Israeli forces were on the move and their ongoing presence in Lebanon is unacceptable. And Iran now has a new point of leverage to pressure the U.S. to either keep its ally on a tighter leash or see the whole deal collapse.
The MOU followed a monthslong U.S. strategy of trying to make peace in Lebanon by going around Hezbollah to speak directly with the Lebanese government. But the fighting is between Israel and Hezbollah, and the Lebanese state cannot control the militant group. Cutting out the combatants cannot achieve the peace Trump has promised is coming.
Look no further than the agreement to end the war in Gaza that Trump helped broker. The initial deal didn’t address the underlying issues that prompted the war or establish a workable framework for the future of Gaza. Further efforts took place between the U.S., Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, which held a formal signing ceremony without any representative from Hamas or the Israeli government. I cannot think of another “peace signing” in history that did not include either of the main combatants.
The aftermath has been shambles. Nine months after the “peace deal” fanfare, Israel still occupies over half of the Gaza Strip, Hamas is still the local authority there, deadly fighting has continued — albeit at a smaller scale than before — and talks have stalled out. The so-called “Board of Peace” Trump set up to oversee Gaza reconstruction has floundered. Very little of the pledged money has transferred and none has been spent — not least because Trump punted on broader Israel-Palestine issues and did nothing to provide the security that could allow reconstruction to take place.
Trump tried a similar approach to the Ukraine war, which he repeatedly swore he could end in 24 hours. His plan was to go around the Ukrainians, cutting a deal directly with Russia then pressuring Kyiv to accept it. The White House denigrated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, parroted the absurd Russian propaganda that the war Russia started somehow wasn’t Russia’s fault and rolled out the red carpet (literally) for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Finding a lasting end to an armed conflict isn’t possible without agreement from the primary forces involved in the fighting.
In doing so, Trump adopted Putin’s preferred frame of the war as the U.S. and Russia settling spheres of influence like 19th century empires. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff put out a 28-point plan that amounted to Ukrainian surrender, which Ukraine unsurprisingly rejected. After almost a year and a half of the Trump administration denying Ukraine’s agency failed to end the war, rather than switch strategies, the U.S. quit the peace process entirely.
Trump followed a similar approach in his first term too, negotiating with the Taliban without including the Afghan government. In early 2020, Trump let thousands of Taliban fighters out of prison and ceased anti-Taliban military operations in exchange for the Taliban refraining from attacks on American forces as the U.S. withdrew. Trump set the withdrawal date after the end of his term, leaving the hard part to the next president. When the U.S. withdrew in 2021, the elected Afghan government America spent two decades propping up collapsed almost immediately after.
In Gaza, Ukraine and Afghanistan, Trump tried to find shortcuts to peace, touting arrangements that didn’t include some of the combatants. Every time he’s done so by excluding a conflict participant from the negotiating table has had bad results. Finding a lasting end to an armed conflict isn’t possible without agreement from the primary forces involved in the fighting.
As Trump has inadvertently shown, there’s no shortcut to peace. Trying to do an end run around conflict participants doesn’t work —and sometimes makes things worse. By linking Israel and Hezbollah’s fighting to the ceasefire without their buy-in, Trump has made the already difficult job of ending a war much harder.
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