u/Thin_Advantage284

The agreement appears to place responsibility for disarming Hezbollah on the Lebanese Armed Forces. But isn’t that simply shifting Israel’s Hezbollah problem onto the Lebanese state?

The LAF is a professional military, but Hezbollah has spent decades building a parallel military structure and has often been regarded as better armed, better trained in irregular warfare, and politically entrenched. Many analysts have questioned whether the army can realistically disarm Hezbollah by force without risking a wider internal conflict.

If Hezbollah refuses to disarm, as it has publicly indicated, and the government tries to enforce the agreement, doesn’t that create the conditions for another Lebanese civil war? On the other hand, if the army doesn’t enforce it, then what mechanism actually makes this agreement work?

Interested to hear different perspectives.

The US and Israel undoubtedly achieved significant military successes and inflicted major damage on Iran. However, wars are ultimately judged by their strategic outcomes, not just battlefield results.

What strikes me is that Iran was attacked by arguably the most powerful military coalition in the world and yet may emerge from the conflict with its regime intact, much of its regional influence intact, sanctions relief under discussion, frozen assets potentially being returned, and perhaps greater leverage over the Strait of Hormuz than it had before.

Another major geopolitical shift was Iran’s willingness to strike Israel directly rather than relying solely on proxies. Even more significantly, Iran demonstrated a willingness to engage Israel directly over events occurring in Lebanon and involving Hezbollah, rather than limiting direct confrontation to attacks on Iranian territory itself.

If Iran comes out of this war feeling more secure, more experienced, and more willing to confront its adversaries directly, can the US and Israel really claim a strategic victory?

The Iraq War is often criticized because the US won militarily but arguably produced long-term outcomes that strengthened Iran’s regional position. Could historians eventually look at the Iran war in a similar way and conclude that tactical successes produced strategic consequences that worked against the original goals of the war?

Or is this comparison fundamentally flawed, and the long-term consequences likely to be very different?