An analysis by Nasser Qandil, Lebanese writer and political analyst, editor-in-chief of the daily Al-Binaa shows a different point of view on what is happening in Gaza, Yemen and Iran.
“Some may think that there is no connection between the statements of US President Donald Trump about the good negotiations with Iran and the closeness to reaching an agreement, the warning of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to do anything against Iran and the statements of his special envoy for the negotiations between Gaza and Iran, Steve Witkoff, about the closeness to reaching an agreement in Gaza, which is the gateway to a long-term solution and begins with a temporary ceasefire”.
According to Qandil, Witkoff’s position as an envoy negotiating the Gaza war and the nuclear issue with Iran “can help us understand the interconnection between the two issues. The speech about Netanyahu’s warning not to do anything against Iran, while he is the negotiator in front of Witkoff regarding the Gaza war, clarifies the issue. During Witkoff’s tenure in Gaza and with Iran, we have become familiar with two American languages, both in Trump’s speeches and in Witkoff’s statements.”
For the Lebanese analyst, one of the initial expressions of the mission was titled “‘the elimination of Hamas’ as a condition for any agreement in Gaza, and ‘the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, the end of its missile program and the severing of its ties with the resistance forces’ as a condition for any agreement with Iran.” Essentially, from this point of view, “the military option was on the table with Iran, in exchange for allowing Israel to have a free hand to open the gates of hell on Gaza and, on the other hand, for the displacement of its population.”
“Then,” writes Qandil, “there was the second expression, which stated that a peaceful nuclear program in Iran could be accepted and that the obstacle was uranium enrichment, and that the failure of the negotiations would mean a return to maximum sanctions, not war, and that there were no points on the negotiating agenda that were not related to the nuclear program.”
He continues: “With regard to Gaza, we began to hear of dissatisfaction with the killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza and that it was time to end this war. Displacement was absent from the agenda and Witkoff opened a channel of dialogue with Hamas that resulted in the release of the captive Israeli soldier and American citizen, Idan Alexander. But between the two languages, there was a secret mission conducted by Witkoff, which was not revealed until after the negotiations with Yemen, which led to the reaching of a ceasefire agreement that stunned the world when President Trump announced it.”
“He said that America would end its war against Yemen without achieving the goal that drove it to this war: preventing Yemen from serving as a front in support of Gaza, both by preventing Israeli ships from crossing the Red Sea and by targeting Israeli territory with missiles and drones. It was well known that Yemen did not decide to target American commercial and military ships until America decided to declare war on it as a front in support of “Israel,” in exchange for its willingness to serve as a front in support of Gaza.”
President Trump’s intention to deter the war in Yemen was also clear in his speech, where he spoke of his predecessor, Joe Biden,’s lack of seriousness in waging this war and his call to wait for significant results before entering it and unleashing hell on the Yemenis, leading to their submission.
The analyst explains that: “He did not fail to emphasize that this war is a message to Iran about what awaits it if it does not reach an agreement according to the rigid American conditions in their first version. This is enough to know that the war in Yemen was the fundamental American participation in the wars in Gaza and Yemen, and that its results determine America’s positioning and rhetoric regarding both wars. The content of the agreement with Yemen reveals this purpose and its effects. Yemen’s steadfastness and the extent of the risks for America, in terms of the inability to continue the war without being involved in a global war of attrition on land, were like the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan, all rolled into one.”
“The agreement, with its abandonment of the language of war, was the lesser of two evils and the sweeter one of the two bitters. However, he abandoned the war on the Gaza fronts and support for “Israel”, of which the war in Yemen was an offshoot. He also abandoned the war with Iran, so much so that the war in Yemen became an example to America of what awaited it if it went to war with Iran. It implicitly abandoned the deterrence equation in the Red Sea, the most important global waterway, according to the American description, in order to avoid war.”
The Eastern Mediterranean, the Gulf and all of Western Asia entered a new phase with the ceasefire agreement between the United States and Yemen, based on the conditions of Yemen. It was natural that negotiations began to end the crisis with Iran over its nuclear program, taking into account that, as long as the option of war was excluded and sanctions were the only option that led to the growth of Iran’s capabilities and the advancement of its nuclear program. It was also natural to seek a solution in Gaza that took into account the conditions of resistance, took them into account and considered how to control Israeli behavior to prevent the recklessness of American involvement in a war that it does not want and that Israel cannot fight or continue without full American support at all levels.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
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