Rajan Menon

That's a good thing.

But there is another big sticking point, namely, the Iranians have set a ceasefire on all fronts.

The Iranians want the ceasefire to extend to Lebanon, but the red line is that Beirut, the capital, should not be hit.

And today, the Israelis hit a southern suburb called Dahiya, which is a Shiite neighborhood and a kind of bastion of

Hezbollah.

So if that continues, this could come unstuck.

Trump somehow managed, I think, to talk the Iranians down from what they were about to do, which was to engage in a retaliation against Israel.

That could have spun out of control.

And then Trump would have had two choices, either to abandon Israel to its own fate, which no president has done in a very long time, or to jump in and help them and have the ceasefire

blow up in his face because the Iranians wouldn't have signed it then.

Well, that's a kind way of putting it.

Yeah, he had a very expletive-laced conversation with him.

So the Israeli-American relationship has been

become increasingly tense, but both the Israeli government as well as the opposition think that this is a terrible deal for Israel.

And so what we have to wait and see is whether the formulation ceasefire on all fronts in effect gives Mr. Netanyahu almost a veto over whether this memorandum of understanding will survive because

Once the deal is signed, then as you know, there is a 60-day ceasefire period during which in two phases, and the two-phase distinction is very important, the nitty-gritty of the agreement has to be nailed down.

Right.

First of all, there has to be demining.

Mm-hmm.

Secondly, the insurance companies have to be really comfortable that the war will not erupt again because these tankers, especially the very large crude carriers, are extraordinarily expensive.