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Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22661/iran-mou-lebanon-framework
Trilateral Framework Guts the Iran-U.S. MoU Reference to Lebanon
(Gatestone Institute) Pierre Rehov - In Lebanon, the U.S. has run two contradictory diplomatic instruments at once, letting the weaker one absorb the enemy's hopes while the stronger one quietly sets the terms. Within nine days, the U.S. put its name to two texts pointing in opposite directions. The first is the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran on June 17. Its 14 points explicitly include a demand for the immediate end of hostilities in Lebanon and the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty. Iran's regime intended this as a deed of eviction: Israel out of southern Lebanon, Hizbullah preserved, the situation frozen in the Islamist militia's favor. A memorandum of understanding is, in diplomatic practice, a statement of intent. It binds no one. It announces a direction and leaves the obligations for later. What Iran could not foresee was that the second document, the Trilateral Framework Agreement signed by the U.S., Lebanon and Israel on June 26, would gut the first without ever formally repudiating it. The Trilateral Framework signed in Washington is not a memorandum. It is an implementation accord. Hizbullah is to be disarmed and its infrastructure dismantled; only upon verified disarmament does Israel progressively redeploy. A Military Coordination Group, facilitated by the U.S., will supervise the mechanism. Hizbullah is not a party to any of it. The Washington framework carries a verification schedule, a coordination body, and an American signature on the operational page. The MoU was the consolation Iran was permitted to believe and has no mechanism behind it at all. Iran negotiated the MoU and believed it had won the war. It discovered that the Trilateral Framework, the only binding document, the one with mechanisms, was written to ensure the opposite. The framework can be enforced, or it can be evaded. What can no longer be claimed is that the U.S. agreed to Iran's terms. The writer is a French reporter, novelist and documentary filmmaker.