GATESTONE
Washington Handed Iran the Paper and Kept the War
Pierre Rehov
July 1, 2026

…Consider what each document asks of the same actor. The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding tells Iran that Hezbollah survives and Israel leaves. The Trilateral Framework says that Hezbollah disarms and that, until it does, Israel stays in Lebanon. The Washington framework carries a verification schedule, a coordination body, and an American signature on the operational page. The Islamabad MOU was the consolation Iran was permitted to believe and has no mechanism behind it at all. A division of labor inside the Trump administration was deployed, and not concealed. The negotiations with Iran were led by Vice President JD Vance, who never wanted this war and made no secret of his wish to end it cheaply. He produced the Islamabad MOU, the paper Iran’s regime wanted to hear. The Lebanon framework was created by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has spent his career treating Iran’s proxy network as a threat to be dismantled rather than soothed. One man offered Iran the vocabulary of relief. The other wrote the document that conditions every concession on the disarmament of Iran’s most valuable proxy. READ MORE

IT’S NOON IN ISRAEL Amit Segal: History in the Making? The two sides commit to formally end their state of war and pursue normal relations through later negotiations. The engine is a reciprocal, sequenced process: Lebanon pledges the complete, verified disarmament of all non-state armed groups—Hezbollah is named—and the restoration of Lebanese Armed Forces control over all its territory, while, in exchange, the IDF redeploys zone by zone as disarmament is verified. Two initial “pilot zones” are agreed, with the rest left to a forthcoming Security Annex. Lebanon affirms Israel’s right to exist and that only the Lebanese state may authorize force on its soil; Israel disclaims any territorial ambitions…For the past four months, Iran has been demanding Israel withdraw from sovereign Lebanese soil; Lebanon’s own government has effectively answered, “You first.”