Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that peace between Israel and Lebanon is "imminently achievable"—if Beirut can finally confront Hezbollah. But even as Washington presses the two governments toward unprecedented security understandings, Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade fire in southern Lebanon.

The ceasefire declared by President Donald Trump on April 16, and then extended on April 23, now hangs in the balance.

For the governments of Israel and Lebanon, the uptick in violence comes at a delicate time. The ambassadors from both nations have met twice now in Washington in a bid to reach new security understandings—but Hezbollah remains powerful enough to stymie these efforts.

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The U.S. ceasefire with Iran may be about to end – or not. Ceasefires, regardless of their length, are often much more than simply a pause in combat. Unfortunately, they are also often a starting gun for a competitive sprint in which the combatants seek to rearm for the next conflict. The side that makes better use of the ceasefire can lose fewer lives in the next conflict.

When the war erupted on February 28, Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles across the region. The Israel Defense Forces intercepted around 90% of those fired toward Israel. The U.S. and its Gulf partners intercepted "1,700 ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones," Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on April 8.

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U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack raised eyebrows last weekend at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum when he stated, "Turkey is not a country to be messed with," — a remark intended to blame Israel for heightened tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem. Blood pressures rose further after Barrack equated Hezbollah and Israel, remarking that both were "equally untrustworthy."

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The domestic debate around the meaning of what would constitute victory in the current military conflict with Iran is nearly as fierce as the fighting itself. Part of this stems from the personage of the commander in chief. For some, no war fought by Donald Trump could ever be won on satisfactory terms. This is the portion of the American electorate that has been reduced to rooting, if often only implicitly, for the clerical regime in Iran to prevail over the United States—alternately by tut-tutting at the increasingly complex nature of the geostrategic battle or by gloating at what they see as Trump's lack of strategy. They simply want the president to lose.

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America and Israel are at war with Iran, a fact that should be neither shocking nor surprising. Both countries have been targeted by the Islamic Republic since its inception in 1979. Both countries have engaged in painful battles with the regime's proxies. Both nations battled Iran for 12 days last year; Israel targeted nuclear assets and other key military targets, paving the way for a crescendo of American strikes that hammered Iran's nuclear capabilities.

But the regime refused to back down. It continued to pursue its nuclear program and its violent proxy project. Its ballistic missile stockpile also grew at an alarming rate.

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