The Swiss summit of imperial humiliation
By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | June 22, 2026
In Switzerland, amid the alpine calm where empires go to perfume panic as diplomacy, Iran delivered another masterclass in the ancient art of refusing to kneel.
The Americans arrived with the usual imperial luggage: threats, ultimatums, sanctions theology, and that peculiar Washington habit of mistaking obedience for “peace.” Iran arrived with something far less fashionable and far more effective: leverage. Not the decorative leverage of think-tank seminars and cable-news generals, but the real kind — the kind that closes straits, terrifies markets, freezes war rooms, and forces the self-appointed masters of the universe to rediscover geography.
The spectacle would be hilarious if it were not so historically obscene.
For decades, Washington imagined Iran could be sanctioned into hunger, bombed into prudence, insulted into submission, and finally dragged into a room to sign its own humiliation.
Instead, the empire found itself bargaining with a country it had failed to break. The result was not Iranian capitulation. It was American improvisation — and improvisation by a declining empire always sounds the same: threats in public, panic in private, and a desperate attempt to rename retreat as strategy.
This is the deeper meaning of Switzerland. It is not merely a diplomatic episode. It is a theatre of reversal. The United States entered the crisis assuming Iran would negotiate like a wounded state. Iran is negotiating like a victorious one. It did not ask for mercy. It is demanding implementation. It did not plead for relief. It is presenting conditions. It did not enter the room as an accused party awaiting sentencing. It is entering as a power whose red lines have acquired consequences.
That is why the Strait of Hormuz matters. In the fantasy literature of American empire, waterways are lines on maps guarded by aircraft carriers and narrated by admirals. In reality, they are political arteries. When Iran demonstrated that it could interrupt the world’s most sensitive energy passage, it did more than create a shipping problem. It shattered a mythology. The empire discovered, rather late in its education, that the sea has neighbors — and that those neighbors have memories.
Washington’s response was pure imperial farce. Trump threatened, blustered, contradicted himself, and performed his usual routine: half Caesar, half casino promoter, with the emotional discipline of a man losing an argument to a mirror. One moment he wanted a deal; the next he wanted tribute.
One moment he spoke of peace; the next he threatened annihilation. This was not statecraft. It was strategic delirium dressed up as presidential resolve.
Yet beneath the orange thunder was the essential fact: America needed the strait open, the markets calm, the war contained, and the humiliation disguised. Iran understood this. More importantly, Iran acted on it.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, performed the role history has assigned him: arsonist in a fireman’s helmet. His political survival depends on permanent emergency. War is not merely his instrument; it is his oxygen. Defeat must be repackaged as deterrence, slaughter as security, occupation as necessity, and humiliation as a “strategic achievement.”
Israel’s problem is not that it miscalculates occasionally. Its problem is that it has built an entire political theology around impunity — and then acted shocked when impunity met resistance.
But this time the room for Israeli theatrics narrowed. Iran’s pressure, Hezbollah’s endurance, the strain on global markets, and Washington’s fear of economic catastrophe produced a rare collision between Israeli maximalism and American self-preservation. For once, unconditional support for Israel began to look expensive even to its underwriters. Let us not become sentimental: this was not morality awakening in Washington. It was arithmetic. But in imperial politics, arithmetic sometimes does what conscience is too cowardly to attempt.
Here lies the exquisite irony. The United States spent decades trying to teach Iran the meaning of pressure. Iran returned the lesson, corrected the grammar, and underlined the thesis. Pressure is not a press release. It is not a Lindsey Graham war fantasy delivered between television segments. It is not Netanyahu’s sweaty monologues about victory while the region watches his project rot from within. Pressure is the ability to alter the enemy’s choices. In Switzerland, Iran is proving it can do precisely that.
The Americans may still posture. Trump may still rage into the digital void. Netanyahu may still deliver speeches polished with self-pity and fraud. The professional warmongers may continue promising wars they will never fight, depressions they will never suffer, and corpses they will never count. But beneath the noise sits the brutal reality: Iran survived the siege, absorbed the blows, retained escalation dominance, defended its allies, protected its sovereignty, and forced the conversation onto terrain of its choosing.
That is the defeat Washington cannot confess and Israel cannot metabolize. Not merely that Iran endured, but that Iran emerged demanding compliance. Not merely that coercion failed, but that the coerced state exposed the coercer’s dependence. Not merely that the empire blinked, but that everyone saw it blink.
Switzerland, then, is not a peace summit in the ordinary sense. It is a mirror held up to American power. What stares back is not omnipotence, but exhaustion dressed as menace.
Iran’s message could not be clearer: no surrender, no submission, no confession of guilt to satisfy an empire addicted to obedience. If Washington wants de-escalation, it must pay in substance. If it wants open waterways, it must respect red lines. If it wants agreements, it must implement them. And if it insists on calling this diplomacy, it should begin with the only honest admission available: coercion failed, Iran stood, and the age of bullying Tehran into submission is over.
Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
By Ron Paul | June 22, 2026
Against the odds, the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US and Iran appears to be holding, after threats and counter-threats. It may collapse, but it has survived a first round of talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend.
President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense.
However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war.
Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial.
Not much gratitude from the Israel-first crowd, even if the war was started to benefit Israel.
And more telling even than this was the reaction of the “opposition” party in Congress, the Democrats. They attacked him harder for ending – or at least pausing – the war more than for starting the war in the first place! Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called the MOU a “capitulation.” Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) called the MOU an “embarrassing document.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar falsely claimed that President Trump was paying Iran $300 billion to re-open Hormuz.
This is more evidence – as if any is needed – that our foreign policy is run by the “uniparty.” When it comes to wars, there is no Republican Party nor is there a Democratic Party. There is only the “yes!” party.
Congress remains silent in the run-up to war. Congress remains silent when the President launches a war. Congress even remains silent when the war begins going badly. It is only on those rare occasions that a president takes steps to correct his mistake that Congress finds its voice.
Yes, there is plenty to criticize. After weekend talks, the US side, led by Vice President JD Vance, is celebrating as a “breakthrough” that the Strait of Hormuz is open again and that Iran has reportedly agreed to the return of UN inspectors. But the Strait was open before this war and UN inspectors were in Iran before President Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA “Iran Deal” in his first term.
The only difference now is that we burned through likely several hundred billion dollars, we lost dozens of aircraft and other military equipment, and we likely lost more service members than the Pentagon is admitting.
It is a reminder of why the Founders intended to make sure that any war must be declared by the people’s Representatives before the first bullet is shot: it should be very hard to launch wars.
Nevertheless, those who are truly against the wars should, in my opinion, hold their fire for the time being in hope that a lasting resolution can be found. The President Is being attacked from all sides by the war party. Now may not be the best time for the peace party to join in.
First round of Swiss-hosted Iran-US talks ends with 5 key agreements
Al Mayadeen | June 22, 2026
Following the conclusion of the first round of the Iran-US talks in Switzerland on Monday, the media committee of the Iranian negotiating delegation issued a statement outlining the main points and understandings reached during the talks.
The Bürgenstock talks outline a phased framework linking security arrangements, financial measures, and sanctions relief to conditional implementation steps.
Key developments include a Lebanon ceasefire monitoring mechanism, structured communication over the Strait of Hormuz, coordinated asset release arrangements, and temporary sanctions relief measures tied to energy exports.
Lebanon ceasefire monitoring mechanism
According to the statement, continued pressure from the Iranian negotiating delegation since Saturday afternoon contributed to maintaining a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon for the time being.
To support stabilization efforts, the parties agreed to establish a monitoring framework titled the “Conflict Control Unit.” Iran is expected to participate in this mechanism, which will oversee developments related to the ceasefire.
The statement further noted that this arrangement would formally integrate the Islamic Republic of Iran into Lebanon’s security-related discussions, despite US efforts in recent months to exclude Iran from Lebanese affairs. It also stated that “Israel” will have no role in this mechanism.
Strait of Hormuz communication channel
Regarding discussions on the Strait of Hormuz, the statement said an understanding was reached to establish a communication channel aimed at addressing potential implementation issues.
Through this channel, relevant parties would be able to directly contact Iran and present concerns related to maritime coordination and regional navigation.
It characterized this arrangement as part of broader discussions on the management and gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Conditional launch of nuclear and sanctions working groups
The agreement also includes the formation of three working groups focused on nuclear issues, sanctions, and monitoring mechanisms.
These groups are set to begin their work only after the implementation of Article 13 of the memorandum of understanding, which outlines several key steps, including:
- A ceasefire across all fronts, particularly in Lebanon
- Initial steps toward lifting the naval blockade
- Release of frozen Iranian assets
- Issuance of waivers lifting sanctions on oil and petrochemical exports
Iran will not enter the final phase of negotiations before these conditions are fulfilled.
Iran–Qatar agreement on frozen assets
During the same round of talks, Iran and Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding concerning the release of Iranian frozen assets. The agreement is presented as part of ongoing financial and diplomatic coordination between the two sides regarding outstanding economic issues.
US OFAC 60-day sanctions suspension
The statement also referenced documents issued by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) during the negotiations.
According to the statement, these documents provide for a 60-day suspension of sanctions targeting oil, petrochemical, and related sectors. This arrangement would allow Iran to resume oil sales to its customers and receive payments through formal mechanisms managed by the Central Bank, the statement explained.
Bilateral and trilateral meetings at Bürgenstock resort
Al Mayadeen’s Geneva Bureau chief reported on Sunday that various bilateral and trilateral meetings have begun at the Bürgenstock resort ahead of the first official session of Iran-US talks. The opening session took place at 2:30 PM al-Quds time.
The first file discussed after the inaugural session was the implementation of the first clause, which relates to ending the war, particularly on Lebanon.
Al Mayadeen’s Geneva bureau chief later reported that the Iranian delegation held talks with the Qatari delegation in Geneva to discuss the ceasefire in Lebanon. He also reported that, following a meeting with the Iranian delegation, the Pakistani Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff held talks with the US delegation, headed by Vice President JD Vance.
According to an Iranian official, speaking to CNN on Saturday, before departing for Switzerland, Vance said that one of the top concerns included in the talks would be to make progress towards a ceasefire in Lebanon. “I think we’re going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we’re going to be focused on,” the US vice president told reporters, noting that he expected to participate in the talks for only “a day or two”.
IRAN WALKS OUT ON PEACE DEAL DUE TO TRUMP’S THREATS – w/ Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi
Mario Nawfal | June 21, 2026
Iran delegation protests Trump’s threat at Switzerland talks, weighs ‘proper’ response: Source
Press TV – June 21, 2026
The Iranian delegation to talks with the United States has raised objections directly with the American side over President Donald Trump’s latest threat of further military strikes, and is now weighing its next steps, a source told Press TV.
“The Iranian delegation has raised its objections to the American side and is currently assessing the conditions to give a proper response to Trump’s verbal threats,” the source said on Sunday.
Trump on Sunday threatened to restart war with Iran, warning Tehran to rein in its allies in Lebanon or face renewed and more powerful US military strikes.
“Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform, referring to US war against the Islamic Republic, which started late February.
The threat was made as Iranian and American delegations were engaged in critical negotiations, mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, at the Bürgenstock resort in central Switzerland, where they are working to implement a 14-point memorandum of understanding.
The talks were the first to be held under the terms of the Islamabad MoU agreed a week ago.
Trump’s threat of further military action against Iran is a direct contravention of US commitments under the interim deal, whose clause 1 commits both parties “not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other.”
A source close to Iran’s negotiating team later told Tasnim news agency that the Iranian delegation left the venue of talks with the United States in protest over Trump’s latest threat.
Terms of US capitulation to Iran presage new era for the region
By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | June 21, 2026
After a week where it seemed the US-“Israel” and Iran were inevitably sliding back into open war, President Trump finally decided to cut his losses and snatch defeat from the jaws of catastrophe. The terms of his submission to Iran, aptly signed in the Palace of Versailles, enter the historical record as among the most humiliating articles of surrender ever accepted, not least by a supposed global hegemon.
On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Switzerland, no less than Trump himself admitted that his decision to accede to almost all of Iran’s demands was meant to forestall an imminent economic depression triggered by the Hormuz blockade. Still more jarringly, all of the many systemic concessions given by Washington; the ending of the US naval blockade, the immediate suspension of US sanctions against Tehran, the handing over of Iran’s sovereign assets frozen around the world, the muzzling of “Israel” from continuing its pyromaniacal rampage of the last three years- all of this was given by Washington in exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (open before the war) and Iran’s willingness to negotiate the status of its nuclear program later on.
Of the agreed conditions, the most jaw-dropping article, which many found exceedingly difficult to take seriously, was the establishment of a fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran, amounting to $300 billion. The most up-to-date estimates of the damages caused to the Iranian economy by the US-Israeli aggression totaled $270 billion, a figure likely to be preliminary rather than final. Alongside this eye-watering sum, Tehran has already begun exporting its energy and petrochemical products free from the constraints of US primary and secondary sanctions, something almost certain to become permanent, while its $100 to $150 billions of international assets will bring in an added infusion of economic activity. Added to this the implicit acceptance – or at least not rejection – of Tehran’s right to levy charges on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz (though not for 60 days) and the Islamic Republic emerges from this war the overwhelming beneficiary of its consequences, achieving in four months of war what five decades of intermittent and painstaking diplomacy could not.
The $300 billion sum functions in effect as an indemnity, a tribute extracted from the treasury of the defeated party in exchange for the granting of peace. Scores of Roman emperors knew full well the significance of the principle, as they had to repeatedly perform this ritual of humiliation before the Iranians countless times over the course of their seven-century-long rivalry in the Late Ancient Period.
In both of their efforts to contain the humiliation of this clause, Trump and his deputy, JD Vance, have been at pains to emphasize that Washington will not be paying any of its own funds to the Iranians for this purpose. In his Thursday press conference, the Vice-President identified that regional states – the Gulf Cooperation Council, which he repeatedly labelled the “Gulf Coast Coalition” – would be “free” to invest in the Iranian economy if they wished to.
This is, and would be, a monumental shift for Washington to even countenance such an arrangement. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has specifically threatened the mechanism through which the US (and to a lesser extent European) economy has siphoned off the wealth of the Arab world and the capital of the Global South, the infamous ‘petro-dollar cycle’. These states exist specifically for the purpose of recycling their energy revenues into the Western economy through arms deals, acquisitions, and investments in Western financial institutions. Trump himself has personified this process more completely than any other president.
That Trump would give his signature, willingly or otherwise, to the GCC pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iranian economy to reconstruct and repair what he destroyed, obviously is demonstrative of which side is the victor in this war. It also signals a shift in the regional balance of power that has truly global ramifications.
If the flow of petro-revenues illustrates the relative strength of the recipient economy, then it shows the war set in motion an increase in Iranian power that grants it competing access to the region’s vast surplus revenues – that is competing with the US.
Even if the process started by the signing of the MoU collapses and the $300 billion fund doesn’t materialize, Tehran’s capacity to challenge – and potentially displace the US as the hegemon of the Persian Gulf, is now a thinkable scenario.
As the consequences of this war continue to unfold and the true increase in the Islamic Republic’s relative power becomes more apparent, it will begin to exert a gravitational pull that makes security under its umbrella a more realistic proposition to the GCC states than the empty promise of American Patriot batteries or fantasies of normalization with “Israel.”
Strategic Oil Reserve Nears Collapse… US Must Choose: Guns or Butter
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | June 21, 2026
As of the week ending June 12, 2026, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) held approximately 340.25 million barrels of crude oil… Sounds like a lot, but it is approaching the danger zone. In late May, that number was 372 million barrels, which consisted of Sweet crude: ~142 MMB | Sour crude: ~230 MMB, according to the US Department of Energy.
The oil is stored in caverns at four sites:
- Bryan Mound: ~166 MMB
- Big Hill: ~90 MMB
- West Hackberry: ~72 MMB
- Bayou Choctaw: ~44 MMB
To understand how perilous the situation is you need to know that if the oil level in these caverns falls below a certain level that the structural integrity of the caverns would be jeopardized. The most commonly cited operational floor is around 20% of capacity. Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, told CNN that the SPR must be at least 20% full to remain operational — that’s roughly 143 million barrels against the SPR’s ~727 million barrel design capacity.
So subtract 143 barrels from 340.25… That means the US only has 197.25 million barrels left before the caverns could face irreparable damage. If the US consumers, who use 20 million barrels a day, had to rely exclusively on the SPR, the US only has less than a 9-day supply of reserves. If you compare the amount reported at the end of May (i.e., 372 MMb) with the June 15th report, the US is drawing 16 million barrels a week from the reserve. This is the optimistic scenario, i.e., the US has roughly a 12-day supply before the proverbial shit hits the fan.
But wait, it gets worse. The US Military has blown through its jet fuel reserves. The problem is compounded becuase Diesel reserves are at 25 year low. Diesel and Jet Fuel are critical Distillates. So the Trump administration must make a choice: support the military jets with jet fuel, or support the trucking Fleet with enough diesel fuel, to provide food and products to US consumers. Trump can’t wage war and keep the economy going at the current rate because diesel and jet fuel compete with each other when comes to production. So the question is, do you want to wage war or do you wanna save the economy and keep the trucks moving on the road? This is the main reason Trump signed the MoU with Iran.
A friend who is an energy analyst summarized the dilemma as follows:
The strategic warning is that the United States cannot assume it can fight a major fuel-intensive conflict and protect the domestic economy without tradeoffs. Military jet fuel, commercial aviation fuel, diesel, heating oil, and marine fuel all draw from the middle distillate portion of the refined barrel. Refineries can bias output, but they cannot instantly maximize every middle-distillate product at once.
The risk is not that every truck or aircraft stops at once. The risk is that a forced fuel-priority decision creates cascading shortages and price shocks across logistics, aviation, agriculture, construction, and consumer supply chains. A war-time jet-fuel surge could reduce the diesel cushion; a civil-aviation diversion could disrupt passenger movement and air cargo. Either channel can become recessionary because both diesel and jet fuel are operating fuels for the real economy.
The US is not the only country or region facing a massive problem. Europe is screwed. An April 2026 report by Karl Miller — The Iran War, the Strait of Hormuz and Europe’s Compound Energy Trap — spells out the danger facing Europe. Here is the Executive Summary:
This report assesses whether the European Union faces a structural energy-security Prisoner’s Dilemma with Russia, with Germany at its centre and the Persian Gulf crisis as the accelerant. The argument is blunt: the Union has deprived itself of the low-cost Russian oil and gas system that underpinned much of its industrial base, while the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz disruption have simultaneously impaired the maritime energy system that supplies a decisive share of the world’s oil, refined products and LNG.
Europe is on its knees in strategic terms. It is not literally without emergency stocks, because EU and IEA rules require minimum oil inventories. The harder reality is more damaging: those inventories are finite, unevenly usable, commercially fragile and unable to replace the normal flow of crude, diesel, jet fuel, LPG, naphtha and LNG through global markets. Emergency stocks buy time; they do not restore cheap Russian pipeline gas, reopen Hormuz, rebuild refining flexibility or prevent member states from bidding against one another.
The EU therefore faces a compound trap. Russian gas is being removed by law, Persian Gulf flows are exposed to war, U.S. LNG has become indispensable but expensive, storage refill is costly, and Germany’s industrial model remains dependent on affordable dispatchable energy. Each member state can rationally protect itself through bilateral contracts, subsidies, exemptions and emergency procurement, yet those same choices weaken the Union’s collective bargaining power and deepen fragmentation.
The conclusion is that the EU is locked into a repeated, asymmetric collective-action game. Escaping it requires enforceable solidarity, shared critical-fuels planning, coordinated storage, firm-capacity realism, a diversified LNG portfolio, strategic petroleum-product management, and legal reforms that make cooperation faster and more profitable than national defection.
Securing Peace with Iran Compels Trump to Divorce Israel
Israel’s goals of territorial expansion conflict with the goals of the US president
By Harrison Berger | The American Conservative | June 19, 2026
After President Donald Trump signed a preliminary Iran peace deal on Wednesday, Israel’s occupation and bombing of Lebanon presents the central obstacle to a final agreement and lasting peace. Securing and upholding the final peace deal will require the kind of confrontation with Israel that Trump has avoided for most of his presidency, given Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and global energy flows.
Iran has insisted that the ceasefire and now the framework peace deal cover the entire regional war and thus require that Israel end its occupation of southern Lebanon. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared Monday that under the framework deal, called a memorandum of understanding, “war and military operations on all fronts—including immediately ending the Lebanon front tonight and permanently—will conclude.”
That demand stems directly from the “long-term security guarantees” Tehran has invoked across its public statements since the beginning of the conflict. For those guarantees to mean anything, Tehran needs Trump to rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ensure that Israel does not launch another surprise attack against Iran. The only way Washington can demonstrate that commitment is to pressure Israel now, in Lebanon. As Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute has argued, binding Israel to a ceasefire is a “test of America’s willingness, and its ability, to restrain its closest regional ally.”
Iran is right to doubt that Washington will exert that kind of pressure over Israel. After Israel’s latest bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Ghalibaf wrote that the incursion into Dahiyeh “has once again shown that America either lacks the will to fulfill its commitments or the ability to do so.” Recognizing that Israel’s violent quest to grab territory in Lebanon could only be accomplished with U.S. approval, Iran’s leading negotiator declared that “the game of bad cop and good cop is outdated.”
Up until that point, the White House had seemed to use Axios and other friendly outlets to give Iran the impression that it was pressuring Israel, even as it kept giving its protectorate in the Middle East the green light to occupy its northern neighbor. Indeed, while American audiences heard from the Axios reporter Barak Ravid that Washington was “furious” over the Lebanon strikes, Israeli audiences heard the opposite.
Miriam Adelson’s Israel Hayom newspaper reported that the United States and Israel were in fact “fully coordinated, both on the strikes in Dahiyeh in Beirut and on the Israeli response to the missile fire from Iran,” and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio in particular played a “significant role” in getting Trump to back Israel’s retaliatory strikes. The Israeli operation, the paper said, was “fully coordinated with CENTCOM, even though the Americans did not strike themselves.” The munitions used by the Israelis in Lebanon are further proof of U.S. involvement, with Courtney Bonneau, the American-Dutch journalist reporting from southern Lebanon, recently telling The American Conservative that the waste left by Israel’s demolition and bombing campaign is recognizably U.S.-made.
Trump wants to have it both ways. The political costs of the war are piling up and he wants an exit, but an exit requires confronting Israel and the lobby over Lebanon, and that is a political conflict he has avoided fighting directly even as he has criticized Netanyahu in recent weeks.
Israel is betting he will continue to avoid it. Shortly after a deal was announced, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon would continue, and that it planned to stay “indefinitely” in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich likewise announced on Tuesday that “there will be no withdrawal from Lebanon, neither by Friday nor afterward. We will remain in south Lebanon and strengthen our presence there,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Monday that Israel is not bound by any agreement.
Though Israeli leaders insist they are carefully fighting “Hezbollah,” the death toll of at least 3,826 Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli attacks reveals that to be merely a pretext. Trump, though he has not skipped any payment when it comes to funding the conflict, admitted as much on Tuesday at the G7 Summit, telling reporters that Israel “does not have to knock down an apartment house every time [it’s] looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”
And though Israel invokes Hezbollah as its excuse for military action, there is little reason to believe the IDF’s occupation would end even if Hezbollah laid down its arms. In their public statements, Israeli officials have expressed interest in territorial expansion for its own sake and, increasingly, in the Judaification of Lebanese land through settlements—an idea Jewish Currents describes as “once fringe” but now backed by “an organized movement with broad governmental and public support.” Twenty members of Israel’s Knesset wrote to the cabinet in April urging “occupation and full control” of southern Lebanon alongside the “complete displacement” of its population, while a poll conducted by Direct Polls for i24NEWS found that 62 percent of Israelis favor occupying everything south of the Litani River.
Israeli occupation of Lebanon, like its ethnic cleansing campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank, works directly against American interests, in this case stopping a war that has wrecked the global economy. Washington has all the necessary tools to put a stop to this, yet has simply declined to use them. As Joe Kent, the administration’s former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and one of the most prominent America First critics of the war argued on X, “We can strengthen our chances of this deal holding by cutting all military/intel assistance to Israel,” who “took every opportunity to tank this deal & will likely do so again unless we take action,” adding that in order for a deal to hold, we must “take away every factor that we can control that could force us back into the war on Israel or Iran’s terms. Set all conditions that we can control in our favor.”
Though once unthinkable, Trump in recent days has shifted closer toward this America First position and away from the Israel First mindset that led to war with Iran. With Iran insisting any peace deal must cover “all fronts,” including Lebanon, and with the Israelis fully committed to the Greater Israel project, cutting off Israel is now the minimum price of the complete exit from the conflict that Trump says he wants.
Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).
Strait of Hormuz closed over Israeli aggression on Lebanon
Al Mayadeen | June 20, 2026
The Strait of Hormuz is shut down in response to ongoing Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters announced, deeming Israeli actions a violation of Iran’s agreement with the US.
In a statement carried by Iranian state television, the Khatam HQ accused the United States of breaching its obligations under a memorandum of understanding related to ending the war, and also cited continued Israeli military actions in southern Lebanon, including ceasefire violations, killings, forced displacement of civilians, and failure to withdraw from Lebanese territory. It added that the measure reflects a response to the deterioration of compliance by the opposing parties and the persistence of hostilities on the ground.
“In light of the United States’ blatant violation of its commitments and breach of the provisions of Article One of the memorandum of understanding to end the war and in response to the ongoing and continuous violation of the ceasefire by the Israeli entity in southern Lebanon, the continued brutal killing and forcible displacement of the Lebanese people, and its failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it is hereby announced that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to maritime navigation,” the statement read.
More steps to follow
The statement from Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters concluded by emphasizing that the measure was presented as an initial response to what it described as the enemy’s breach of commitments, warning that any continued escalation would prompt additional actions aimed at compelling compliance with its stated obligations.
“It is noted that this first step is a response to the enemy’s breach of promise, and if the aggression continues, further steps will be planned and taken to force the enemy to comply with its obligations,” it asserted.
37+ martyrs in continued Israeli attacks on southern, eastern Lebanon
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) carried out a fresh wave of attacks across southern Lebanon and western Bekaa on Saturday morning, killing at least 37 people and extending a pattern of aggression that has persisted despite an alleged ceasefire in place since April 17, 2026.
In the Nabatieh area alone, at least 25 people were martyred and another 35 were injured in an initial toll, as reported by the Civil Defense Operations Room of the Islamic Health Authority’s Jabal Amel II region. Rescue and ambulance teams are still clearing rubble and searching for missing people. Among those martyred in the Nabatieh area is a Lebanese Army soldier killed in an Israeli drone strike in Kfar Rumman.
Meanwhile, an Israeli attack on a residential building in the town of Qennarit in the Saida district killed 7 and injured 13 others, among them 5 children and 5 women, as per the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
In western Bekaa, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that four people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in the town of Sohmor, in addition to a person killed earlier in a separate drone attack that targeted a motorcycle in the same town, bringing the death toll in Sohmor to five. Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that a child remains under the rubble in Sohmor, with rescue teams working to save him.
Dozens of towns bombed
Local media reports that the IOF carried out at least 80 attacks on southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa since early morning on Saturday, comprising 65 airstrikes and 15 drone strikes, in addition to artillery shelling and sweeping fire.
The hardest hit areas are al-Nabatieh al-Fawqa (8 times) and al-Rihan heights (6 times). Kfar Tebnit and its surroundings, Jabal al-Rafi’, Shoukin, and Nabatieh city were each bombed four times, while Kfaroumman, Aramta, the al-Aroush quarry, Harouf, and Habboush were each bombed three times.
Sojod, the area between Toul and Kfour, Kfar Joz, Zebdine and its surroundings, and Shhour were each attacked twice, while Nmairiyeh, Arabsalim, al-Mahmoudiyeh, Borj Qalaway, Qabrikha, Barish, al-Qatrani, and Qennarit were each bombed once.
Drone attacks, artillery shelling
Israeli drones, meanwhile, attacked Nabatieh city four times and Arabsalim twice, with single drone attacks hitting Deir al-Zahrani, Doueir, Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain, Kawthariyet al-Riz, Sohmor, Harouf, Jibchit, and al-Nafakhiyeh.
Israeli artillery also shelled Majdal Zoun, Habboush, Harouf, and Ali al-Taher, while occupation forces carried out sweeping-fire operations in Buyout al-Sayyad.
Friday’s escalation
Saturday’s strikes followed a sharp escalation on Friday, when the IOF expanded its attacks to include several southern villages, the outskirts and northern entrance of Baalbek, and the Litani Riverbed near the town of Zellaya in the western Bekaa, attacks that resulted in massacres of civilians.
The bombardment continued even as Reuters reported that a ceasefire agreement between “Israel” and Hezbollah had taken effect at 4 pm that day. Within moments of the so-called ceasefire taking hold, Israeli occupation warplanes launched more than 16 attacks on areas across the South, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health confirmed that the intensified aggression carried out from midnight through Friday afternoon martyred 47 people and injured 97 others, an updated toll showed. The Ministry put the cumulative toll of Israeli attacks between March 2 and June 19 at 3,980 martyred and 12,001 injured.
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