US President Donald Trump’s aim of getting an interim peace deal with Iran signed on Sunday looked increasingly unlikely following Israeli attacks on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon’s capital.
Iran heavily criticized the strikes on Beirut, which came after Hezbollah fired projectiles on northern Israel. That prompted Trump to urge Israel to stop its operations, potentially further raising tensions between Washington and its closest ally in the Middle East.
“There should be no more attacks by Israel anywhere in Lebanon, but there should also be no more attacks by any other party, including Hezbollah, against Israel,” Trump said Sunday in a social media post. “This could be the beginning of a long and beautiful peace — Let’s not blow it!”
He later told Fox News in an interview that the deal could be finalized in a matter of hours on Sunday, with a possible in-person signing in Europe later in the week.
Trump swore at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call early this month in frustration over the Jewish state’s deepening invasion of Lebanon, where it says it’s creating a security buffer on its border to stop Hezbollah attacks. The group, designated a terrorist organization by the US, is a key ally of Iran. Tehran insists any deal with Washington includes a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Even before the Israeli strikes, Iranian media was downplaying Trump’s assertion that a so-called memorandum of understanding would be signed on Sunday, the US leader’s 80th birthday.
The deal is meant to extend the US-Iran ceasefire by two months, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lift an American blockade of Iranian ports, though officials from each country have given differing versions of what’s in the latest draft. The two sides would then go into further negotiations about curbing Iran’s nuclear program.
Three people were killed by Israel’s strikes and 15 injured in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.
Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said there was “no point” in continuing talks if the US lacked the “will and ability” to stop Israel from bombing Lebanon. The Islamic Republic warned that Israeli attacks on Beirut wouldn’t go “unanswered,” according to state media.
The Israeli military said late Sunday it was preparing for incoming fire in the coming hours. It didn’t specify if it meant from Lebanon or Iran, which exchanged missile fire with Israel a week ago.
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US officials were still hopeful of a deal before Monday.
“From all I know, we are on track — it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. “There’s logistics involved into how these things happen.”
While Group of Seven officials on Friday said Iran and the US might affirm a deal on the sidelines of the group’s summit this week in France, Iranian media later said it was more likely to be an electronic signing.
Iranian officials have emphasized there’s been progress in recent days and say they are closer to a pact than at any point since the ceasefire started on April 8. Yet they’ve been more cautious than Trump, stating that not all the clauses of what’s likely to be a 14-point document are finalized.
Sticking Points
A Qatari delegation of mediators arrived in Tehran on Sunday to continue exchanging messages between Iran and the US regarding the MOU, according to the Iranian ISNA news agency.
While Tehran is likely to reiterate it won’t build nuclear weapons, key sticking points include its demand the US unfreezes tens of billions of dollars of Iranian funds held in countries such as Qatar, and Washington’s push for the Islamic Republic to agree to destroying or diluting its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.
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Reuters, citing an unidentified Iranian official, reported that a draft of the MOU includes the US allowing the release of $25 billion of frozen assets.
Trump, under pressure from Iran hawks in the US, has said that Iran won’t get any money immediately upon an MOU being signed. That’s been echoed by other US officials, who say the Islamic Republic will only benefit financially once it shows it’s sticking to the terms of the deal, including allowing traffic to move freely through the Hormuz strait.
Trump has added that when other components of the deal are settled, Washington will “go in and get the nuclear dust,” his term for highly enriched uranium, and would destroy it either in Iran or the US.
The two sides have been negotiating via mediators such as Pakistan and Qatar since the truce kicked in. Tensions have remained high and the ceasefire looked close to collapsing this week, with Iran and Israel exchanging fire. The US then blamed Iran for downing one of its Apache helicopters, which led to clashes between them on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
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Trump said he would hit more military targets on Thursday, before changing plans with his announcement that an agreement with Iran was imminent.
His switch in stance came after Iran privately threatened to end negotiations and escalate its response to any further US strikes, one diplomat familiar with the matter said.
Trump has vacillated dozens of times in recent weeks between saying a deal is near and threatening to return to all-out war against Iran.
He started the conflict in late February when he opted to bomb Iran alongside Israel, saying it was necessary to stop Tehran from building a nuclear weapon. He and Netanyahu also signaled they wanted regime change, ending the Islamic Republic that came to life with Iran’s revolution in 1979.
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Although Iran has been battered and several top officials have been killed — including Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s predecessor and father, Ali — its forces have caused chaos across the region. They’ve fired thousands of missiles and drones at Israel and US allies such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran also effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz by hitting some ships, sending energy prices soaring. While oil has dropped since late April, with traders anticipating a deal rather than a return to full-blown warfare, it’s still up more than 40% this year at around $85 a barrel.
And time may be running out to keep prices below $100. The US and other nations have drawn down emergency petroleum stockpiles at a record rate to help cap prices. Oil executives have warned those buffers are reaching critical lows.
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The jump in fuel costs has pushed up inflation globally, including in the US, hurting Trump and his Republican Party ahead of midterm elections in November.
At the same time, Trump is keen to present any deal as a win and is under pressure from Iran hawks such as Senator Lindsey Graham not to unfreeze any of Tehran’s funds. Many of them have called on him to resume strikes and “finish the job.”