Dave DeCamp, editor of Antiwar.com on the real-or-faux ceasefire “agreed to” by the US and Iran on April 7. It appears neither side was directly negotiating (sit down, in person dialogue) to be on the same page on terms, and Trump may not have even read the 10-point deal Iran proposed before announcing his approval of it. Perhaps the point was for both countries to agree to a “framework” while each spun it as a “victory.” Either way, we need a final PEACEfire, not another “pause before a new round of war” ceasefire at this point:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal with the US must include a halt to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, which have dramatically escalated since President Trump announced the truce on Tuesday night.
“The Iran-US Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the US must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both,” Araghchi wrote on X. “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
Iranian media reported that Iran has halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel’s continued bombing campaign in Lebanon.
“The passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz has been halted following Israel’s attacks on Lebanon,” Iran’s Fars news agency has reported.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the US-Iran ceasefire deal, said in his initial announcement of the agreement that it would also include a ceasefire in Lebanon, a point reaffirmed by Iranian officials. But it has since been denied by both the US and Israel that Lebanon was part of the deal.
“The two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X. On Wednesday morning, Israel launched a massive bombardment across Lebanon, killing and injuring hundreds of people, as part of a new escalation it dubbed “Operation Eternal Darkness.”
President Trump was asked if the ceasefire included Lebanon and called it a “separate skirmish” that was “not included” in the deal. “Yeah, they were not included in the deal,” he said. “Because of Hezbollah. They were not included in the deal. That’ll get taken care of, too. It’s alright.” Read More