Diplomatic mission is impossible: the United States and Iran are trying to consolidate a fragile peace

American Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and businessman Jared Kushner, who have arrived in Doha, are preparing the ground for future consultations with the Iranian side, which should culminate in the conclusion of a final deal. At the same time, the dialogue is complicated by the vague wording of the Islamabad Memorandum signed on June 17 and the parallel agreement on Lebanon. Beirut is obliged to disarm Hezbollah, but the group refuses to do so. The Knesset told Izvestia that Israel does not believe in Lebanon's ability to fulfill the conditions, so the IDF intends to maintain freedom of action throughout Lebanese territory, including the capital.

Iran-US peace Talks

Steve Witkoff, the US president's special envoy for the Middle East, and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the American leader, arrived in Qatar for indirect meetings with representatives of Iran. At the same time, Tehran denies the possibility of direct contacts with Washington in the near future: the republic's Foreign Ministry said it had sent only an expert group to Doha to resolve the technical issues of the peace deal. According to Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, only soil probing is underway, and not a full-fledged dialogue. This stage of consultations will last up to two months, and its finale should be a personal meeting between Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Peseshkian to sign the final agreement, the expert noted.

On June 17, the parties signed the Islamabad Memorandum, which gives Washington and Tehran 60 days to work out the final document. It provides for a cease-fire, the opening of the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran's renunciation of nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions and the creation of a $300 billion Iran reconstruction fund. However, a quarter of the allotted 60-day period has already passed, and the document itself is extremely fragile. Political scientist Alexander Kargin drew attention to the abundance of pitfalls: the text does not spell out the mechanisms for the withdrawal of American troops from the region (the United States will definitely not curtail bases in Kuwait and Bahrain), the procedure for unblocking Iran's assets and the sources of the financial assistance fund.

Despite the apparent impasse in agreeing on details, Iran and the United States do not want to return to full-scale hostilities, says Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEMI) Higher School of Economics Georgy Asatryan. According to him, this campaign has become one of the most unpopular in history for the United States: the operation split the MAGA movement, lowered Donald Trump's rating to 30%, and Washington has no real mechanisms for the complete suppression of Tehran. Iran's economy and industry were also severely affected by the American bombing.

Nevertheless, a compromise is still unlikely due to the harsh mutual conditions. The White House demands the complete denuclearization of Iran with the cessation of uranium enrichment and the removal of its reserves. Tehran sees nuclear developments as the only guarantee of survival. According to Kargin, the main lever of pressure for Iran remains the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which provokes a jump in oil prices, and for the United States, attacks on Iranian oil refining facilities. If the diplomatic pause drags on, hostilities may resume even before the November congressional elections, Asatryan concluded.

Negotiating stress: Will the US and Iran reach a deal on time

Quick agreements without guarantees will only marginally delay a major war.

Disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon

At the same time, the US-Iranian dialogue risks being disrupted by the situation in Lebanon, where the framework agreement signed on June 26 obliges Beirut to disarm Hezbollah in 60 days in exchange for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops. As a pilot step, the IDF will withdraw pointwise from two southern districts to test the Lebanese army's ability to clear the group's infrastructure. However, in Israel itself, the cessation of attacks on Hezbollah is considered a mistake, Yevgeny Sova, a deputy from the Our Home Israel party and deputy speaker of the Knesset, told Izvestia.

— We are not optimistic about this issue, so the success of this agreement will depend not on loud declarations, but on the results on the spot. The territory of Southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River, should become a demilitarized zone, and there should be no Hezbollah members there, even under the guise of civilians," the politician stressed.

The Secretary General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, called the agreement a shameful surrender and said that the movement would not lay down its arms, and the group's parliamentary bloc warned that forced disarmament would provoke a civil war in Lebanon. In these circumstances, according to Blokhin, the White House will not be able to put pressure on Israel because of the powerful pro-Israel lobby and the pro-Jewish position of the oligarchs in the United States.

No one invited Hezbollah to the negotiating table, but it controls southern Lebanon. The official Lebanese army is in a deep economic crisis. Without serious international financial assistance, it is simply unable to withstand well-armed Shiite groups.

Iran will never surrender to Hezbollah. According to Asatryan, such a step would betray the ideals of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and turn the population against the official authorities of the republic. On the other hand, Israel strongly insists on complete freedom of action and the right to strike Lebanon at any time if the group tries to regain strength. The Knesset is confident that in order to ensure security, the IDF should not be limited only to the border area.

— Israel is obliged to maintain freedom of action not only in southern Lebanon, but also in Beirut. It's no secret that senior Hezbollah members feel safe in the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut," Sova stressed.

However, Lebanon will not accept these conditions: no government will legalize the bombing of its capital, and for President Joseph Aoun, this would mean an accusation of treason. Speaker Nabih Berri, the Amal party and the Loyalty to Resistance bloc spoke out against the deal. As a result, Washington's attempt to consolidate the "regime of silence" has reached an impasse, and the fragile memorandum risks collapsing, returning the region to an all-out war.