The latest round of talks between the USA and Iran just ended. It was without doubt, a victory for Iran. The Iranian plan appears to be to drag out negotiations for as long as possible, an to wait for the US to lose interest in attacking them. They make little concessions here and there and pretend to considering bigger ones later. What is significant is that the steadfastly refuse to discuss anything but the nuclear issue. They will not talk about missile development or support for terrorism. Not at all. And they continue to claim a right to nuclear development under the guise of “for peaceful purposes”. Their past behavior in that regard shows that they really cannot be trusted to adhere to any such agreement.
This leaves the question of how long can the USA sustain the stance of military pressure without actually using it.
Meanwhile, their support of their primary proxies, Hamas in Gaza, and Hizbullah in Lebanon, continues.
Israeli forces are engaged with both those proxies on a daily basis. It rarely, if ever, makes the news. But every day IDF forces kill one or two terrorists in both Lebanon and Gaza. Hamas sends one or more of their men to probe Israeli positions and seek an opportunity to inflict casualties. These attempts almost always end with Hamas casualties. At the same time the IDF is still discovering underground tunnels that are often blown up soon after they are located. The IDF patrols regularly discover small amounts of Hamas weapons and munitions, some of them may not be recently established. In Lebanon, Hizbullah continues to attempt to reestablish positions in the areas they withdrew from and this also leads to IDF actions that result in one or nore terrorists being hit. The Lebanese government and regular army did commit to disarming Hizbullah, but that task is well beyond their capability. Hizbullah is both larger and stronger than the Lebanese Army. The Lebanese government is under no illusions about what will happen if Hizbullah attacks Israel (for whatever reason). And Hizbullah still has an arsenal of several thousand missiles that can hit Israeli Targets from areas North of the Litani River (i.e. areas where Israel did not require them to leave).
So life goes on, but with an added element of tension.
Wetherhorn 