Iran Gets Trump to Rescue Hezbollah

Iran’s regime began Monday by throwing a wrench into negotiations with the U.S., and President Trump spent the rest of the day scrambling to satisfy Iran’s demand. The result is a new cease-fire in Lebanon, rescuing Hezbollah for the moment, though the terrorists didn’t abide by the first cease-fire for even a day.

Hezbollah began this war with Israel on March 2, firing on soldiers and civilian targets on the orders of its Iranian patrons. The first Lebanon cease-fire was announced April 17 after Iran’s regime had said Israeli retaliation against Hezbollah was preventing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Mr. Trump pressured Israel and delivered the cease-fire, but Iran reneged on Hormuz—and its Hezbollah proxy kept firing.

Israel avoided attacking Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut in reply, so as not to trouble U.S.-Iran negotiations. Hezbollah’s strikes intensified, reaching an average of 125 rockets and 49 drones fired at Israel each day last week. No country can live with that. On Monday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would expand its retaliation to Dahiyeh. Israel issued an evacuation order for civilians.

Enter Iran. On Monday state media reported the regime had stopped exchanging messages with the U.S. owing to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Iran’s Foreign Minister said they amounted to an American cease-fire violation.

The shamelessness is always striking. Iran has repeatedly violated its April 7 cease-fire with the U.S. by firing drones and missiles at commercial vessels, U.S. forces and Gulf states. In recent days it has downed a U.S. drone over international waters and fired ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Kuwait. Through it all, Mr. Trump has limited the U.S. responses to self-defense and insisted the cease-fire still obtains.

In reply to Iran’s threat to end negotiations, Mr. Trump talked tough. “I don’t care if they’re over,” he told CNBC. “Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring.”

But the President’s actions suggest he does care. After long calls with Mr. Netanyahu and Lebanese interlocutors, on Monday afternoon Mr. Trump announced a new cease-fire in Lebanon: “They agreed that all shooting will stop,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Lebanon and Israel suggested the deal is only partial. As long as Hezbollah doesn’t attack Israeli territory, Israel won’t attack the terrorists in Dahiyeh, Mr. Netanyahu said. This is a recipe for managing the conflict, limiting it to southern Lebanon, where both sides expect to continue the fight.

This suffices for now for Israel, which won high ground in Lebanon in recent days and could use time to mount defenses against fiber-optic drones. But Hezbollah’s capital again has been spared the consequences of the group’s own actions. Iran is winning its proxy a refuge.

Anytime it wants, Iran could tell Hezbollah to stop shooting and end the war, which Israel has no desire to wage. Instead it encouraged Hezbollah’s fire, so it could cut off U.S. talks when Israel inevitably responded in force. The regime has two interests here: Protecting its terror proxy while it attacks Israel and resisting the U.S. changes to the draft memorandum of understanding that we reported on Thursday.

Iran’s regime sees this as one war, and it has been testing Mr. Trump on all fronts. If it fires on U.S. forces in the Strait or Gulf, will he still try to salvage the cease-fire? How about stepped-up attacks on Israel? How about claiming to quit negotiations? In each case, Mr. Trump has chosen to avoid escalation and keep talking. If he won’t send a different message, it will be difficult to get the regime to comply with a deal, no matter what it promises now.