by James M Dorsey
President Donald J. Trump is signaling a potential willingness to impose his will on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on multiple Middle Eastern issues, despite appointing hardline pro-Israel figures to his Cabinet and as key ambassadors.
This weekend’s deadline for the withdrawal from southern Lebanon of forces by Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militia and political movement, could provide an early indication of how far Mr. Trump may go in twisting Mr. Netanyahu’s arm.
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Mr. Trump successfully pressured Mr. Netanyahu to accept a halt to the fighting in Gaza earlier this month.
Brokered in November by the United States and France, a Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire agreement calls for a withdrawal of Israeli and Hezbollah forces by January 26.
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With US officials warning Israel that the Trump administration does not want the agreement to collapse, Israeli media reported that the administration opposed a delay.
The US officials issued their warning after Israel asked for a 30-day postponement of its pullback but before Mr. Netanyahu’s office said Israel would not withdraw because “the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by Lebanon.” The prime minister’s office said a “gradual withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States.”
Israel said the delay was necessary because the Lebanese military had been slow in disarming Hezbollah and ensuring the group withdraws its fighters to north of the Litani River, 30 kilometres from the Lebanon-Israel border.
The Lebanese military, countering the Israeli attempt to prolong its presence in southern Lebanon, reportedly carried out some 500 operations to inspect potential Hezbollah sites, dismantle infrastructure, and confiscate weapons in the last two months.
The Litani River runs across southern Lebanon from north of Tyre in the west to just south of Marjayoun in the east.
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Hezbollah rejected any delay but tellingly refrained from threatening Israel if it failed to comply with the withdrawal deadline.
Instead, the group put the onus on the government, saying it should use “all means and methods guaranteed by international charters” to recover Lebanese land “from the occupation’s clutches.”
Lebanon’s newly elected leaders, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salim, have suggested they are determined to disarm Hezbollah by insisting the state should have a monopoly of weapons and deployment of forces in southern Lebanon.
By putting the onus on the government Hezbollah hopes to counter demands for its disarmament enshrined in the ceasefire agreement and a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution by demonstrating that the Lebanese military is unable to dislodge Israel from Lebanese territory.
The Trump administration’s insistence on adherence to the Lebanon and Gaza ceasefires comes as Mr. Trump, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Iranian conservatives signaled a potential interest in arrangements that could put the president at odds with Mr. Netanyahu.
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Iran has lurked in the background recently as Mr. Trump provided glimpses of what he may want to do in the Middle East.
One key question is how Mr. Trump will handle Iran. The president agrees with Mr. Netanyahu that Iran should not be able to develop a nuclear weapon, even if he this week refused to be drawn on Mr. Netanyahu’s desire to attack Iranian facilities and critical infrastructure.
Iran has said it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon.
“I’m not going to answer that,” Mr. Trump said when asked whether he would support an Israeli strike.
“It would really be nice if that could be worked out without having to go that further step. Iran will hopefully make a deal, and if they don’t make a deal, that’s okay too,” Mr. Trump added.
Israeli television quoted senior US officials as saying Mr. Trump did not want to have a war on his watch.
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Mr. Trump reportedly plans to add Iran to his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff’s portfolio.
Having played a key role in engineering the Gaza ceasefire, Mr. Witkoff is expected to visit the Strip in the coming days to demonstrate US commitment to see the fragile three-phased truce and Palestinian-Israeli prisoner exchanges fully executed. The modalities of phase two and three have yet to be negotiated.
Iranian proponents of direct talks with the Trump administration took heart from Mr. Trump’s remarks, his appointment to senior Pentagon positions of Elridge Colby and Michael Di Mino, opponents of Israeli strikes at Iran, and the president’s firing on his first day in office of Brian Hook.
An Iran hawk reportedly involved in the 2020 US killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, Mr. Hook served as Mr. Trump’s Iran envoy during the president’s first term.
Mr. Trump said on X that Mr. Hook was among 1,000 appointees inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden, whom he dismissed because they were ‘not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” adding, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Iran hawks in Mr. Trump’s administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sought to lower the temperture in the spirit of Mr. Trump’s moves.
In his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Rubio said he would support “any arrangement that allows us to have safety and stability in the region but one in which we’re clear-eyed.”
Treading on equally sensitive ground, Mr. Witkoff will also visit Saudi Arabia at a moment when the kingdom sees an opportunity to get its way with Mr. Trump by catering to the president’s transactional approach to foreign policy.
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Mr. Bin Salman took Mr. Trump up on his offer to visit the kingdom early in his second term in exchange for hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts with US companies. The crown prince said the kingdom would invest US$600 billion in the United States over the four years of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
In a video address to the World Economic Forum, Mr. Trump said a day later he wanted Saudi Arabia to “round out” the investment to US$1 trillion and urged the kingdom and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to bring down the oil price.
Mr. Trump is eager to engineer the establishment of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as part of a deal that would also include a US-Saudi defence arrangement and US support for the kingdom’s nuclear program.
Saudi Arabia has insisted in the wake of the Gaza war that it would only formalize relations if Israel agreed to a credible and irreversible path to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has demonstrated in Gaza and the West Bank in word and deed the lengths he is willing to go to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Attempting to shift the paradigm, Mr. Witkoff, the Middle East envoy, argued as he prepared to visit the region that nomalisation of Saudi-Israeli relations constituted “an amazing opportunity for the region. It’s basically the beginning of the end of war.”
Mr. Witkoff left open the question on what terms that would happen. His management of the Lebanon and Gaza ceasefires will likely provide clues.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.