Rubio vs. Vance: The Lebanon trap

The agreement now circulating in Washington reads, on its surface, like a Lebanese diplomatic success. A withdrawal is promised. Sovereignty, without once mentioning the armistice agreement, is invoked. The Lebanese presidency is presenting the text as the recovery of occupied land and the restoration of state authority over the South. Read more carefully, against the regional moment that produced it, the document looks like something else entirely: an instrument designed less to stabilize Lebanon than to reach past Lebanon and strike at the emerging understanding between Washington and Tehran.The first thing to register is the gap between what Israel won on the ground and what it is now extracting on paper. The surrender being drafted in Washington reflects nothing of Israel's actual position in the South. Israeli forces there are...