Iran ceasefire

Vance said as he left for Islamabad that he believes the negotiations will be “positive,” though he warned, “If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”

He will be joined by presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law and former foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner. Iran’s government has not announced who will be involved in the negotiations, but state media have reported that parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to attend. 

The difficulties of these negotiations were foreshadowed in the aftermath of the ceasefire agreement as both sides disagreed about what was included in it. In addition to disputing whether Lebanon was included in the deal, there was disagreement over whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium, and what would happen with the Strait of Hormuz.

“Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said on social media Friday morning. “These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.”

His comments reflect the entanglement between the two conflicts and how Israel and Hezbollah could derail the U.S.-Iran negotiations. It’s also unclear what “blocked assets” he was referring to, though Iranian funds overseas are often frozen due to Western sanctions.

After Ghalibaf’s comments, Trump posted on Truth Social, “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”

On Thursday, the president accused Iran of doing a “very poor job” of allowing ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway off its coast that it has effectively shut down, which continues to have global economic ramifications. The two-week ceasefire deal was contingent upon Iran reopening the strait.

“I think the lesson that you take away from this, whether you’re Iran, China, whoever else is, that the United States can be compelled to give up if you, you know, cause the price of oil to increase, the price of other goods to increase in restricted waterways. I think that’s a real travesty,” Brian Carter, a fellow with the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner.

If the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran do not go well, the war could resume. More than 50,000 American troops remain in the region. The ceasefire agreement was announced 90 minutes before a Trump-imposed deadline. If it had not been met, he would have authorized devastating strikes on Iranian infrastructure, hitting targets the U.S. had not gone after.

Trump said on Tuesday morning, hours before the deadline, that a “whole civilization will die tonight,” and he said a day before that “very little is off limits” if they didn’t reach an agreement.

Three days have passed since Trump announced the agreement, leaving 11 days until his two-week delay reaches its deadline. It’s unknown if the president would authorize those strikes if the two countries haven’t made progress by then.

Trump has said Iran has undergone regime change because most senior leaders have been killed, but it’s largely been a leadership change because those who have filled the vacancies follow the same ideology as their predecessors.

“I think we can expect that based on those who are at the highest levels right now, we’re going to see a pretty hard line regime that in many ways resembles the regime that’s been in power for 50 years,” Carter added.

Israel-Lebanon

The U.S. also pushed Israel in recent days to meet with Lebanon to de-escalate the Israel-Hezbollah war that has largely taken place in southern Lebanon. Major Israeli strikes in Lebanon shortly after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire commenced created conflicting reports from all sides about whether the Israel-Hezbollah conflict was included in the U.S-Iran agreement.

The U.S. and Israel were adamant that the Israel-Hezbollah war was not included in the U.S.-Iranian ceasefire, while Iranian officials accused Israel of breaking the terms of the deal that had just been implemented.

A State Department official confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Israel-Lebanon negotiations will occur there on Tuesday. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter will represent Israel, while Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad will represent her country, the official added.

HOW IRAN HAS CHANGED FROM THE START OF THE WAR UNTIL THE CEASEFIRE

“The negotiations will focus on the disarmament of Hezbollah and the establishing of peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, though he also noted, “There is no ceasefire in Lebanon. We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force.”

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in late 2024 following more than a year of intermittent fighting and an Israeli ground invasion into southern Lebanon. The Israelis agreed to withdraw their troops from southern Lebanon on the condition that the Lebanese Army would remove Hezbollah and its weapon stockpiles from that area. The terms of the deal, which still have not been accomplished, were originally outlined in the United Nations resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israel had carried out infrequent strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire deal, though it then escalated those attacks dramatically after Hezbollah renewed attacks on northern Israel in early March following the start of the Israel and U.S. war against Iran.

More than 1,800 people have been killed and more than a million displaced in Lebanon since the war in Iran began, according to the Lebanese authorities, but they do not specify how many of those people were combatants or civilians.