Rajan Menon

All of these technical details, when it came to JCPOA, took years to work out.

The Israelis are in a very tight spot.

On the one hand, Netanyahu is under extraordinary pressure not to buckle to the Americans.

But on the other hand, Hezbollah remains a problem militarily.

Hezbollah is not going to go anywhere.

Hezbollah, by the way, didn't exist until 1982 when the Israelis invaded Lebanon.

It's important to

to understand.

It is a kind of resistance movement.

Does it engage in terrorism?

Yes.

But it's a much more complicated thing than some small terrorist group.

It's woven into the fabric of Lebanese society and it's not going to be made to go away.

And so we have to ask ourselves, as the 60 days passes by, can we be sure that the Lebanese part of the ceasefire will hold?

Well, his option is to try to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu, who has very strong support among certain quarters in the United States.

Not just organized Jewish groups, but also evangelical Christians, new conservatives and so on.

So Netanyahu is not without leverage.

So he can make it look like Trump is abandoning an ally.

But I think Trump will realize that Iran will in fact strike Israel if Israel violates a ceasefire.

The Iranians have said hitting Beirut crosses our red line.