Iran dominating talks on ending conflict

The US-Israeli war on Iran has been a major miscalculation. Iran has emerged the “victor” simply by surviving the onslaught and is dictating the terms of the ceasefire and dominating negotiations on ending the war.

- Michael Jansen, Political Correspondent

Although Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials were killed at the outset of the campaign, there was no regime change, a key objective of the US and Israel. Instead, there was a smooth transition to Khamenei’s wounded son, Mujtaba, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which has assumed rule while he lays down policy.

Iran sustained heavy bombing of its navy, ports, and arsenal, but Tehran managed to retain enough missiles and drones to retaliate against Washington’s Gulf allies which had urged the US not to mount this war. While US President Donald Trump was dragged into this failed offensive by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he has not been consulted in the negotiations for the ceasefire. Although expected to go along with Trump’s dealmaking, Netanyahu has attempted to subvert the ceasefire by ordering attacks on Beirut and southern Lebanon from which Israel has refused to withdraw under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This lays down the terms for the ceasefire which would launch negotiations to end the war. Israeli actions in southern Lebanon have, so far, forced the postponement of negotiations between the US and Iran which were meant to begin this weekend.