An armed and violent criminal holds a gun to the head of a hapless hostage, demanding that a third party jump off a cliff.

An outlandish but apt metaphor for what’s happening on the Iran negotiation front these days.

The mullahs are unarguably armed and violent, having murdered tens of thousands of their own citizens – aside from, through their various gangland proxies, untold numbers of Americans, Israelis and others. They are holding the U.S. hostage, with the threat of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz again (concretized by recent attacks on vessels), unless Israel – no party to the current negotiations – withdraws from southern Lebanon.

The world needs a reset here, a zooming-out to provide some perspective.

The facts: Hezbollah is a terror organization, pledged, like its patron Iran, to the destruction of Israel (and eventual Shia dominion of the world). Lebanon is barely a country and unable (despite its recent ballyhooed agreement with Israel) to control Hezbollah, which operates (read: launches missiles and drones) with impunity from its territory. Israel, to protect its citizens from their would-be murderers, has created a security zone in southern Lebanon. Iran is demanding that she withdraw and make herself vulnerable to the killers.

And, recent icing on the rancid Iranian cake came last week in the form of a media outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that contended that  Iran has “no choice” but to develop a nuclear bomb.

Maybe you can make this stuff up, but only as the plot of an absurdist novel.

And now, enter the “Deconfliction Cell,” a mechanism designed to “ensure compliance with the cessation of military operations in Lebanon” outlined in the “memorandum of understanding” signed by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Mediators Qatar and Pakistan (longtime coddlers of Islamurderers) announced the plan, to be overseen by themselves, the Lebanese government and the U.S.

Neither Israel nor Hamas, the actual combatants in southern Lebanon, were mentioned in the announcement.

According to an informed source, the plan would “monitor and document Israeli cease-fire violations and establish a clear and rapid timetable for a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.” The Lebanese army, no match for Hezbollah forces, “would assume responsibility for areas vacated by Israeli forces.”

Dream on, says Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. “IDF troops in southern Lebanon,” he averred, “will have full freedom of operation to engage any direct or emerging threat to them or to the residents of northern Israel. The IDF has no restrictions in this regard.”

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, waxing diplomatic, said that Israelis “support President Trump’s [original] vision of ensuring that Iran no longer has nuclear capabilities, ballistic missiles or the ability to funnel money to its proxies to threaten its neighbors and maintain its regional hegemony.” But, he added, “the concept of ‘deconfliction’ is misplaced.”

The current ceasefire, he noted, was conditional on Hezbollah withdrawing to the north. “Is this agreement still binding?” he asked. Good question. Hezbollah hasn’t accepted it.

Mr. Leiter also took the opportunity to ask about how the U.S. intends to assure that the billions of dollars that Iran is granted access to in the MOA (through unfrozen assets and a “reconstruction fund”) “do not find their way to Hezbollah.”

Another good question. In 2025 alone, Iran moved $1 billion to Hezbollah, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. If currently sanctioned money is released, the terror group could recover, its weapons intact and its internal position in Lebanon only further strengthened by the very diplomacy meant to constrain it.

But Vice President Vance strives to reassure us. “Sometimes,” he told reporters, if Israel is attacked by Hezbollah, “we could have a better and more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that is ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region.”

Respond to deadly missiles and drones with… conversation!

Mr. Vance has admitted experimenting with drugs in his youth, which ended only after threats from his grandmother. Has he relapsed? Unfortunately, his bubby is no longer alive to set him straight.

President Trump has said that he was “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon” and now downplays Israel’s reaction to a plan that ostensibly binds her but in which she had no say at all. “They have a lot of respect for me,” he said, “and they do as I say.”

Mr. Vance has also warned that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world sympathetic to Israel.”

Maybe the president and vice president’s words are mere posturing, an attempt to gain credibility with the mullahs, in the hope of getting them to truly commit to limit their ambitions. They need to realize, though, that to Iran, “negotiations” are just a stalling opportunity, a speed bump on the road to a nuclear weapon.

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