EDITORIAL: Hezbollah, Proxies, and the Illusion of a Total Ceasefire With Iran

Introduction: The Deal That Ignores the Elephant in the Room

The MOU and its promises on proxies

The USA-Iran memorandum of understanding of June 17, 2026 provides for a cessation of hostilities on "all fronts" — an ambitious formulation that explicitly included Lebanon, the operating theater of Hezbollah. On paper, this commitment is revolutionary: for the first time, Iran formally agreed to end the armed activities of its regional proxies within the framework of an international agreement. Had this clause been honored, it would have represented a historic turning point in conflict resolution in the Middle East.

But three days after the signing, Iran declared it was closing the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon. By invoking Lebanon as the grounds for retaliation, Tehran implicitly demonstrated that Hezbollah remains an active variable in its strategic calculus — a variable that Iran is prepared to invoke to justify direct actions, even within the framework of an MOU that was supposed to cover those activities. This is the fundamental contradiction that this editorial sets out to examine.

The impossible promise of a total ceasefire

The promise of a ceasefire on "all fronts" is fundamentally problematic because it assumes that Iran exercises total operational control over organizations that have developed their own strategic autonomy. Hezbollah is not a division of the Iranian army. It is a political-military organization with its own command structures, its own partial sources of funding, its own popular support bases in Lebanon, and its own strategic calculations that do not always align perfectly with those of Tehran.

This reality is not a technical detail — it is a fundamental structural limitation of any agreement with Iran that claims to cover proxy activities. And on June 20, 2026, this limitation made itself known to all architects of the MOU with a particularly eloquent brutality: Israeli strikes in Lebanon triggered a direct Iranian reaction, demonstrating that Hezbollah remains a Tehran red line even after a general ceasefire agreement had been signed.

Hezbollah in 2026: A Weakened but Still Active Organization

Years of Israeli military pressure

The Hezbollah of 2026 is no longer the Hezbollah of 2006 or 2012. The Israeli strike campaigns of previous years have degraded part of its arsenal, eliminated several of its commanders, and reduced its capabilities in certain sectors. The death of Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 during an Israeli strike deprived the organization of its most charismatic historical leader, creating a leadership transition period. This pressure has made Hezbollah more cautious in some of its operations — but has not disarmed it.

In June 2026, Hezbollah remains a significant military force in southern Lebanon, with thousands of experienced fighters, a missile stockpile that still represents a serious threat to northern Israel, and a political and social structure deeply rooted in Lebanese Shia communities. This is a reality that Israeli strikes can degrade at the margins — but cannot eliminate as long as the political and social conditions that enabled Hezbollah's emergence remain in place in Lebanon.

Israeli strikes post-MOU: why they continued

The legitimate question raised by Israeli strikes in Lebanon in the days following the MOU signing is this: why did Israel continue striking Hezbollah positions when a ceasefire agreement had just been signed by the United States and Iran? The answer lies in the very structure of the US-Israel relationship: Tel Aviv did not sign the MOU, is not party to the agreement, and maintains its own national security doctrine that includes the right to strike Hezbollah positions whenever they represent an imminent threat.

For Israel, the USA-IranMOU is a bilateral matter that does not alter its own red lines on national security. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, with its missiles aimed at northern Israel, remains a threat that Tel Aviv addresses independently — regardless of the diplomatic context in which relations between Washington and Tehran are situated. This is a posture consistent with Israeli security doctrine — but one that creates major diplomatic complications for the architects of the MOU.

Iran Facing the Hezbollah Dilemma

An indispensable proxy to Iranian regional strategy

For Iran, Hezbollah represents far more than a simple military proxy. It is the most important strategic investment of the past forty years of Iranian regional policy — an investment of tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of military advisers, and a profound ideological commitment to building an organization that embodies Iran's vision of an Islamic regional resistance against Israel and Western interests.

Abandoning Hezbollah within the framework of a deal with Washington would be for the Iranian regime not only a considerable strategic cost, but also a major ideological shock that would call into question the credibility of the entire project of exporting the Islamic revolution. The Revolutionary Guards, who have invested personally and institutionally in building Hezbollah, will not accept sacrificing this proxy without concessions they deem sufficient — and the current terms of the MOU are far from meeting that threshold.

The Iranian calculus: keeping Hezbollah as leverage

Iran deliberately retains Hezbollah as leverage in the final negotiations. By signing the MOU while continuing to react to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions, Tehran sends a clear message: Hezbollah is a separate issue from the main USA-Iran deal, and it will be treated as a bargaining chip in upcoming negotiations — not as a preliminary concession to the main deal. This is negotiation through compartmentalization: separating issues to prevent concessions in one area from automatically implying concessions in another.

This strategy is consistent with Iran's negotiating doctrine. The Iranians never put all their assets on the table at the outset. Hezbollah, like nuclear enrichment, is an asset that Tehran will mobilize in final negotiations to extract additional concessions — beyond the oil waiver and the lifting of the naval blockade already obtained through the MOU. And if those additional concessions are not forthcoming, Hezbollah will remain active — regardless of what the MOU text says about "all fronts."

JD Vance in Switzerland: Nuclear and Ceasefire as Priority Issues

The two subjects of Bern

When US Vice President JD Vance traveled to Switzerland for emergency discussions with the Iranian delegation on June 20, he publicly confirmed that the two "important subjects" to be discussed were the nuclear file and the ceasefire. This statement is revealing: even in a declared crisis — Iran was threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz — American priorities remained nuclear first, ceasefire second. Hezbollah and regional proxies were not mentioned as priority subjects of the emergency discussions.

This relative silence on proxies in the Bern emergency discussions illustrates the hierarchy of American priorities. For Washington, what matters most is preventing a nuclear-armed Iran and maintaining the general ceasefire. The proxy question is seen as a secondary issue — important but not at the same level of urgency as the nuclear question. This is a strategically understandable short-term choice, but one that creates a structural gap in the agreement: a deal that resolves the nuclear question without resolving proxies leaves intact a major source of regional destabilization.

What Switzerland reveals about the diplomatic mechanics

The rapid mobilization of JD Vance for discussions in Switzerland within hours of Iran's declaration of strait closure reveals something important about the diplomatic mechanics of the MOU: there is no dispute-resolution mechanism built into the agreement itself. When a crisis erupts, improvisation is required — send the vice president by plane to Bern, activate emergency diplomatic channels, and manage the crisis in real time without any pre-established institutional framework.

This absence of an institutional dispute-resolution mechanism is one of the most serious structural flaws in the MOU. A solid agreement should include clear processes for managing violations and interpretive disputes — processes that do not require mobilizing the Vice President of the United States every time a crisis erupts. Establishing such mechanisms must be an absolute priority in the final deal negotiations.

Hezbollah and Lebanon: An Unsolvable Equation?

Lebanon as a state within a state

Lebanon's situation in 2026 perfectly illustrates the apparent insolubility of the problem posed by Hezbollah in the framework of an Iran-USA agreement. Lebanon is a formally sovereign state, a UN member, with a recognized government — but its government does not exercise effective control over a significant part of its territory and its armed forces. Hezbollah possesses its own military arsenal — estimated at tens of thousands of missiles — which in sophistication and quantity exceeds that of the regular Lebanese army.

Resolving the Hezbollah problem through a bilateral USA-Iran agreement assumes that Iran can guarantee the disarmament or military withdrawal of an organization that has embedded itself in Lebanon's political, social, and military structures over forty years. This is an assumption that defies ground-level realities. Even if Iranian leaders gave orders for Hezbollah to lay down its arms — which is not conceivable in the short term — Hezbollah has its own institutional base that would allow it to resist that order or maintain its structures while superficially adjusting its appearance.

Israel, Lebanon, and the endless cycle

The Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon cycle is one of the oldest and most entrenched unresolved conflicts in the Middle East. Since 1982, every attempt at resolution — peace agreements, military withdrawals, UN Security Council resolutions — has been followed by a new escalation. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) was meant to end Hezbollah's military influence in southern Lebanon — it was never fully implemented. The Taif Agreement (1989) was meant to disarm all Lebanese militias — Hezbollah obtained an exception in the name of its "resistance" to Israel.

This historical cycle of unimplemented agreements must be kept in mind when assessing the chances of success of the "all fronts" clause in the MOU of June 17, 2026. It does not predict failure — historical situations change, strategic calculations evolve, and improbable agreements have sometimes succeeded where all precedents argued for failure. But it demands clear-eyed honesty about the considerable challenges posed by any agreement that claims to resolve the Hezbollah problem in 60 days.

June 20: Iran Violates the Spirit of the MOU by Invoking Lebanon

The mechanics of the violation

Iran's declaration on June 20, 2026 to close the Strait of Hormuz "in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Lebanon" is a violation of the spirit of the MOU — even if its legal defense is that it was Israel and Hezbollah that violated the agreement first. This mechanic is revealing: Iran uses the actions of a third party (Israel) on a theater covered by the agreement (Lebanon-Hezbollah) to justify a direct action (closure of Hormuz) that violates the letter of the agreement.

This is a sophisticated diplomatic technique: Iran can simultaneously claim to respect the MOU (we are reacting to others' violations) and violate it in practice (we are closing the strait we had just reopened). This ambiguity gives it diplomatic maneuvering room while maintaining pressure on Washington. And it demonstrates that the MOU, as drafted, lacks clear attribution clauses that would allow for an objective determination of who violated the agreement and to what extent.

The drafting deficiencies of the MOU

The June 20 sequence reveals several drafting deficiencies in the MOU that will need to be corrected in the final agreement. First, the absence of a clause clearly defining violation attribution mechanisms — who determines that a violation has occurred, by whom, under what conditions? Second, the absence of institutionalized dispute-resolution mechanisms that do not require mobilizing senior officials on an emergency basis. Third, the absence of a clause specifying the treatment of actions by third parties (Israel, proxies) within the perimeter covered by the agreement.

These gaps are not an oversight — they reflect the constraints of the emergency negotiation that produced the MOU. In 15 days, it is impossible to draft a perfectly institutionalized agreement. But these gaps will need to be filled in the following 60 days, otherwise the final deal risks being as fragile as the MOU itself in the face of the inevitable provocations that will emerge from the complex geopolitical reality of the Middle East.

Houthis, Iraqi Militias: The Other Proxies in the Equation

A proxy network that extends beyond Hezbollah

Hezbollah is only Iran's best-known proxy. Iran maintains a broader network of regional proxies that contribute to its influence project: the Houthis in Yemen (who have attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea since late 2023), Iraqi militias such as Kataib Hezbollah that have attacked American bases in Iraq and Syria, and other groups in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. The "all fronts" clause of the MOU is supposed to cover all these actors — but the implementation challenge is proportional to the size of the network.

For the Houthis in particular, the problem is structurally similar to that of Hezbollah: an organization that has developed its own autonomy, its own local support base, and political ambitions that go beyond the simple role of proxy. The Houthis control part of Yemeni territory, have developed significant military capabilities (ballistic missiles, drones, naval mines), and have their own political agenda in Yemen that Iran supports but does not entirely control. Getting Iran to stop Houthi attacks in the Red Sea is a commitment that Tehran cannot guarantee with certainty.

Iraq as an additional layer of friction

Pro-Iranian Iraqi militias add yet another layer of complexity to the equation. Iraq is a sovereign country with an elected government that maintains official relations with the United States — while hosting militias that regularly attack American bases in Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi government does not have full control over these militias, which operate under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces and receive direct Iranian support. The "all fronts" clause of the MOU is therefore supposed to cover actors operating in Iraq — sovereign territory where the United States maintains troops in a different legal framework from that of the Persian Gulf.

This multi-territorial complexity is an additional reason why an agreement that claims to cover "all fronts" in 60 days is extraordinarily ambitious. The geopolitical reality of the Middle East unfolds across multiple countries, multiple actors, multiple layers of sovereignty and legitimacy — a reality that an emergency MOU cannot fully capture in its drafting.

The American Position Facing the Hezbollah Dilemma

Washington caught between Israel and the Iran deal

The American position in the face of the Hezbollah dilemma is one of the most uncomfortable in the entire MOU sequence. On one hand, Washington has signed a framework agreement that provides for a cessation of hostilities on all fronts — including those involving Hezbollah. On the other, Washington maintains its alliance with Israel and cannot — and does not want to — dictate to Tel Aviv that it cease striking Hezbollah positions that Israel considers direct threats to its security.

This tension between the deal with Iran and the relationship with Israel is structurally unresolved in the MOU. Washington cannot simultaneously guarantee to Iran that Hezbollah will not be struck by Israel AND guarantee to Israel its freedom of military action against Hezbollah. These are two incompatible commitments. And in a situation where Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to act unilaterally when it judges its security at stake, this incompatibility is a permanent source of risk for the MOU's survival.

The need for a US-Israel coordination mechanism

For the MOU to survive the inevitable friction linked to Hezbollah's activities and Israeli responses, Washington must develop a much closer coordination mechanism with Israel than currently exists. This mechanism should allow Washington to be notified in advance of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah-linked targets, assess their likely impact on the MOU, and if necessary, recommend alternatives or adjustments. This is not a guardianship mechanism — Israel remains sovereign — but a consultation mechanism that would reduce unpleasant surprises like the one on June 20.

Establishing such a mechanism requires a mutual trust between Washington and Jerusalem that must be carefully cultivated. Current tensions between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government on multiple issues — Gaza, the West Bank, settlement funding — do not facilitate this relationship. But without this coordination mechanism, the cycle of Israeli strikes triggering Iranian reactions threatening the MOU risks repeating itself indefinitely.

The Post-Deal: What Hezbollah Looks Like in Tomorrow's Middle East

Scenarios for Hezbollah after the deal

If the final USA-Iran deal is concluded within the 60 days of the MOU and includes provisions on proxies, several scenarios are possible for the future of Hezbollah. In the most optimistic scenario, Iran gradually reduces its financial and military support for Hezbollah as part of its economic reintegration into global markets and the normalization of its relations with the United States. Hezbollah, deprived of its main funder and arms supplier, gradually sees its military capabilities degrade, eventually transforming the organization from a military into a political actor.

In the intermediate scenario — probably the most realistic — Iran reduces its directly visible support for Hezbollah without eliminating it. Hezbollah maintains its structures and capabilities in a reduced profile, waiting for an opportunity to reactivate them if circumstances allow. And in the pessimistic scenario, the final deal does not contain sufficiently binding clauses on proxies, Iran continues to support Hezbollah through less visible circuits, and the Hezbollah-Israel cycle resumes its usual dynamic.

Lebanon as the ultimate test of the deal's viability

Lebanon is, in a sense, the ultimate proving ground for the long-term viability of the MOU. If Hezbollah continues to operate militarily after the deal — even at a reduced level — it proves that the deal has not resolved the proxy question. And without resolution of the proxy question, the stability in the Middle East that the MOU is supposed to establish remains fundamentally incomplete. Lebanon cannot be the forgotten variable in an agreement that claims to bring regional peace.

For the Lebanese people — exhausted by decades of conflict, economic crises, and the instrumentalization of their territory by external actors — an agreement that genuinely reduced Hezbollah's military grip and allowed the Lebanese state to recover its full sovereignty would be a blessing. But this outcome requires difficult decisions from Tehran, from Hezbollah itself, and from regional powers whose interests do not necessarily align with Lebanese peace. It is a multi-variable puzzle with no guaranteed solution.

The Editorial: What I Really Think About the Deal and Hezbollah

A necessary honesty

In an editorial, you must have the courage to say what you truly think. Here is my position: the MOU of June 17 is a necessary and imperfect agreement. Necessary because the alternative — military escalation in the Persian Gulf with Iran — would have catastrophic economic and humanitarian consequences. Imperfect because it does not resolve the fundamental questions — the nuclear program, the proxies, Hezbollah — that led to the crisis. And the "all fronts" clause that claims to include Hezbollah is the most imperfect of the agreement's imperfections — because it creates an unrealistic expectation that will inevitably be disappointed.

I maintain that the deal deserves to be pursued in the following 60 days. But I refuse to celebrate a deal on proxies that has not yet demonstrated its feasibility. Hezbollah is a ground-level reality that will not disappear by the magic of a memorandum signed at Versailles. It will take years of patient diplomatic work, serious verification mechanisms, and an Iranian political will we have not yet seen for the "all fronts" clause to become reality.

What I demand from this deal

As a columnist who has been observing geopolitics for years, I demand three minimum things from this deal — and from the negotiators who will pursue it over the next 60 days — on the proxy question. First, a clear and operational definition of what a ceasefire on "all fronts" means — with measurable indicators and verification mechanisms. Second, a USA-Israel coordination mechanism that reduces the risk of Israeli strikes triggering Iranian reactions that derail the deal. Third, a credible and progressive process for reducing Iranian support for Hezbollah and other proxies — not a vague promise, but commitments with timelines and conditionality.

Without these three elements, the "all fronts" clause of the MOU will remain what it is today: a diplomatic statement of intent unaccompanied by the mechanisms that would allow it to be realized. And the next Israeli strikes in Lebanon will inevitably trigger a new Iranian crisis — in 60 days, in six months, or in a year. The next crisis is already written into the fragile structure of the current agreement.

Ukrainian Resistance in This Context

Ukraine as a model of resistance to adversary proxies

There is a painful irony in the situation: the Iranian Shahed drones that Hezbollah helps refine — through the operational lessons learned from its military advisers in Yemen and elsewhere — are the same drones that Iran supplies to Russia to bomb Ukrainian cities. Ukraine has been resisting this Iranian drone artillery for two years — at the cost of thousands of civilian lives, destroyed infrastructure, and a national fatigue that imposes extraordinary sacrifices on its population.

Zelensky understands better than anyone what it means to fight the proxies of an authoritarian regime. He understands that peace with central Iran does not mean peace with its drones in Ukraine. He understands that every diplomatic deal not accompanied by a cessation of Iranian arms deliveries to Russia is a deal that maintains the threat against the Ukrainian people. And that is why the link between the Iran deal and protecting Ukraine is not secondary — it is central.

What the West must do for Zelensky

The West must demand from Iran, in the final deal negotiations, that the cessation of hostilities explicitly includes stopping arms deliveries — Shahed drones first — to Russia. This is not a marginal subject; it is a test of Iran's sincerity in its desire for de-escalation. An Iran that signs peace with Washington while continuing to fuel the bombardment of Kyiv is not a peace partner — it is an actor playing all sides at once.

This demand must be made publicly and firmly by the American administration — not quietly slipped into the negotiations as a secondary condition. Zelensky deserves to have the demand for a cessation of Iranian arms deliveries to Russia stated explicitly and centrally in the discussions. It is the minimum solidarity the West can offer him in the context of the MOU — and it is the test of coherence between American Middle East policy and European policy of support for Ukraine.

Proxies as Indicators of the Iranian Regime's Nature

The proxy as an extension of revolutionary doctrine

Iranian proxies — Hezbollah, Houthis, Iraqi militias — are not an accident of Iranian foreign policy. They are the direct expression of the Islamic revolutionary doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This doctrine — founded on the idea of a regional Islamic resistance against Israel and Western imperialist powers — specifically designed these proxies as instruments of power projection that allow Iran to act across the entire region without direct engagement of its regular armed forces.

Asking Iran to abandon its proxies is asking it to abandon one of the fundamental pillars of its strategic doctrine since 1979. This is not impossible — doctrines can evolve, especially under economic pressure — but it is a change that will not occur in 60 days. It will take years, perhaps decades, of internal Iranian transformation for the regime to relinquish its proxy network. And this transformation process can only be accelerated if the economic incentives for international reintegration are powerful enough to outweigh the ideological incentives for maintaining the proxy network.

The conditions for an Iranian transformation

Transformation of Iranian proxy policy is possible — but it requires conditions that the current agreement has not yet assembled. It requires, first, Iranian security guarantees robust enough for Tehran to feel it can reduce its external power-projection capabilities. It requires, second, an Iranian economic integration deep enough that Iranian leaders perceive the economic gains of rehabilitation as exceeding the strategic gains of maintaining the proxy network. And it requires, third, an evolution of Iran's domestic politics in which pragmatic factions progressively prevail over the radical factions of the Revolutionary Guards who are the primary promoters of the proxy network.

None of these three conditions is in place today — but all three can be progressively worked toward within a serious final deal and patient diplomatic engagement. This is the long-term project that the MOU of June 17 should initiate — knowing that results will not be visible within 60 days but rather in the five to ten years that will follow the final deal, if that deal is concluded.

What Iran's June 20 Declaration Reveals About Tehran's Reliability

A difficult partner, a possible deal

Iran's June 20 declaration — closing the strait in retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon, in violation of the spirit of an MOU signed three days earlier — raises the fundamental question of Iran's reliability as a diplomatic partner. The honest answer is that Iran is a difficult, unpredictable partner in the short term, and a strategically calculating one over the long term. It is not an ideal partner — but in the geopolitical circumstances of June 2026, it is the available partner for avoiding catastrophic military escalation in the Persian Gulf.

A difficult partner can still sign agreements that hold — if those agreements are designed with sufficient verification mechanisms, conditionality clauses, and resilience in the face of inevitable provocations. The question is not whether Iran is a reliable partner in the abstract — the answer is no. The question is whether an agreement can be structured such that even a short-term unreliable Iran is compelled to respect it by sufficiently powerful incentives and sufficiently robust mechanisms. That is the challenge of the next 60 days.

Hope despite the doubts

I will close this editorial on a note that may surprise coming from a columnist who has multiplied reservations about the MOU and the proxy question: hope. Hope that the 60 days of negotiation following the MOU will produce a final agreement solid enough to progressively reduce the risks that Hezbollah poses to regional stability. Hope that Iran will gradually choose the path of international reintegration over that of power projection through armed proxies. Hope that the Iranian people — who aspire to a normal life, to economic opportunity, and to openness to the world — will eventually carry enough weight in their country's politics for its leaders to make less destructive choices.

This hope does not deserve to be naive. It must be accompanied by clear demands, robust verification mechanisms, and constant diplomatic vigilance. But it must not be smothered by cynicism either. The Middle East has surprised the world in both directions — for the worse, but sometimes for the better. And if this deal, despite its imperfections, opens a path toward a little more stability in a region far too long left to violence, then it deserves a chance.

Hezbollah Facing the Lebanese Reconstruction Dilemma

Lebanon as a battleground between two competing logics

Lebanon in 2026 is the country that best illustrates the fundamental contradiction of the post-deal USA-Iran era. On one side, a population exhausted by years of economic crisis, banking collapse, and smoldering civil conflict aspires to reconstruction. On the other, Hezbollah — a political-military organization funded by Iran — maintains an armed presence incompatible with the full sovereignty of the Lebanese state.

The USA-Iran deal does not resolve this contradiction. It suspends it temporarily. If Tehran slows its arms deliveries to Hezbollah during the negotiation period, that is a tactical calculation — not a strategic abandonment. Hezbollah remains Iran's insurance policy in Lebanon, Tehran's long arm on the Israeli border. Disarming this arm would require a concession that Iran is not prepared to make, regardless of the MOU.

Lebanese reconstruction and the role of the international community

The international community — notably France, the United States, and the Gulf monarchies — conditions its aid for Lebanon's reconstruction on governmental reforms and a weakening of Hezbollah's influence. These conditions are legitimate. But they create a cruel dilemma: the Lebanese people are waiting for this aid, but political actors controlled by Hezbollah systematically block the required reforms.

The result: Lebanon remains in a diplomatic grey zone where international aid is insufficient, reforms make no progress, and Hezbollah maintains its grip precisely through the absence of the state. This is a vicious cycle that the USA-Iran deal does not break — it could even consolidate it if Iranian funds freed by sanctions easing continue to flow toward Beirut through the networks of the Party of God.

Conclusion: Assumed Imperfection as the Condition of Realism

An editorial that does not conclude with certainty

I cannot conclude this editorial with certainty. The question of Hezbollah and Iranian proxies within the framework of the USA-Iran MOU is a question without a definitive answer as of June 25, 2026. What I know with certainty: the "all fronts" clause is the most fragile in the MOU, June 20 immediately demonstrated its fragility, and the next 60 days will be decisive in determining whether this clause can be transformed into something more solid.

What I hope: that negotiators on both sides work seriously to develop coordination mechanisms between Washington and Jerusalem to reduce the risk of new crises of the June 20 type; that the question of Iranian arms deliveries to Russia be explicitly addressed in the final negotiations to honor solidarity with Ukraine; and that the promises on proxies come with clear conditionalities and verifiable timelines.

For Ukraine, for the region, for peace

In the final analysis, this editorial is written to support Ukraine, democracy, and peace — in that order. The USA-Iran deal can serve all three objectives if it is well negotiated and if the lessons of June 20 are integrated into the final agreement. But if the deal comes at the expense of pressure on Russia, of solidarity with Zelensky, or of the credibility of Western security guarantees — then it is no longer an instrument of peace, but an instrument of diplomatic convenience at the expense of the principles that give the West its value.

This line must be held. By Trump, by Macron, by all Western leaders who invoke the values of freedom, democracy, and respect for international law. Peace is only worth something if it is just. And a peace that abandons Ukraine or that rehabilitates without sufficient conditions a regime that bombs its neighbors through proxies is not a just peace. It is an armistice.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Editorial positioning

This editorial expresses the personal and engaged viewpoint of Maxime Marquette, independent columnist-analyst. It reflects an editorial position clearly favorable to Ukraine and democracy, and critical of authoritarian regimes. This positioning is deliberate and openly acknowledged. The author has no institutional ties to governments, political parties, or lobbying organizations.

Limits of the analysis

Information on Hezbollah's internal command structures and on the precise relationships between Tehran and its various proxies is partially non-public. The analyses in this article draw on open-source materials and published academic work, and make no claim to exhaustiveness regarding the internal dynamics of these organizations.

Independence and method

Maxime Marquette is committed to never inventing quotations, testimonies, or figures. Every fact put forward in this article is accompanied by a reference to a verifiable source. The columnist acknowledges the element of opinion in this editorial and invites readers to consult primary sources to form their own judgment.

Sources

Primary Sources

BBC: "Iran says closing Strait of Hormuz and accuses US and Israel of violating ceasefire deal" — June 20, 2026

Claw Street Journal: "Iran Ceasefire, Lebanon, Three Crises" — June 21, 2026

Holland & Knight Law: "U.S.-Iran MOU all fronts clause" — June 18, 2026

Secondary Sources

The Automatic Earth: MOU context — Debt Rattle June 19 2026 — June 19, 2026

19FortyFive: "The Iran Deal Doesn't Stop at Iran" — June 19, 2026

CSIS: "A New CRINK Axis" — June 25, 2026

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist