Hezbollah’s absence blocks real progress : Analysis

Añadido: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Well, we're joined now by Mark Kimmitt, who is a retired US general and the former assistant secretary of state for political military affairs. He's right in the studio with us. In in Doha. So, we've got Southern Lebanon very much in play in this whole conflict naturally here as well. We've had of course one journalist sadly been killed this evening. And also the US Embassy at least reports the US Embassy is urging Americans to leave Lebanon following the escalation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.

[00:00:28]But this is on the eve of the second round of talks which a message like that to Americans in Lebanon can't be very encouraging for this dialogue.

[00:00:38]Well, well there are some functional flaws in my opinion on this whole notion of dialogue. The fact is we have Israel there, we have Lebanon there, we have the United States there. We don't have Hezbollah there. And this clearly there's a difference between de facto and de jure.

[00:00:57]De jure Beirut has sovereign control over the entire country. De facto, we know that for years and years uh Hezbollah has been the de facto leader of the southern part of the country. So, their absence from this uh political discussion as well as their connection to Iran would indicate that we're not going to see any movement on this in the near term. Well, I mean this is something which we had a 2020 full ceasefire as well which was also repeatedly of course broken.

[00:01:29]>> Mhm.

[00:01:29]And this now this ceasefire is on top of that other ceasefire. So, what gives?

[00:01:34]Well, the important thing is what is it going to take for a peace agreement between the nation of Lebanon and the nation of Israel? And the fact is as far back as resolution 1701 the disarmament of Hezbollah. And Hezbollah seems to have absolutely no interest in ending this war. They're being candidly encouraged by their masters in Iran to continue the resistance. So, it's hard to see a situation where Lebanon either is willing or is able the government in Beirut is willing or able to restore sovereignty over the southern part of their country. General, so let's move to the wider conflict and move to what's happening with Iran and the US now. And you know, we were talking this time yesterday. We haven't moved on much from that. Where are we?

[00:02:26]Well, I think it's very simple.

[00:02:29]There are backchannel talks going on negotiating on returning to negotiations.

[00:02:34]Uh there're front channel messages coming from all sides. Uh different elements inside of Iran have different views and are not shy about announcing them which we haven't seen in the past within Iran because there was always message discipline.

[00:02:50]A bunch of different views, a bunch of different opinions from a bunch of different organizations.

[00:02:55]By contrast in the United States, we only have one person uh of who can make the messages and tell the messages without any fear of contradiction.

[00:03:05]>> So, so general Unfortunately, he's got many opinions on a daily basis. Yeah, exactly. So, so general, you know, the thing there is, you know, who's the biggest obstacle to getting these negotiations to get to the negotiations?

[00:03:17]Who's the biggest impediment? Well, it certainly is the case that the United States has agreed to opening the strait three times and the Israel the Iranians have always backtracked on the conditions. Uh for example, a simple one, if it was closed by Iran until there was a ceasefire in Lebanon.

[00:03:39]There's ceasefire in Lebanon, President Trump then announced that the Iranians have agreed to open it.

[00:03:45]Uh but in no case have we seen full compliance or a willingness on the part of the Iran of Iran to try to change the conditions for opening it up. They still want to control entry and exit, they still want to uh turn it into the Triborough Bridge and charge tolls going in and out. And I think everyone agrees that there should be unrestricted unfettered uh access to the Strait of Hormuz uh no different from any strait uh of consequence in the world like the Strait of Malacca. So, one can only wonder how they're going to have the breakthrough. Let's just hope that what we're hearing in public is not the negotiations that are having hoping uh happening in private.

[00:04:31]>> Um let's widen this even further now and with the amount of assets that the US has placed into the region, uh there've been many concerns now about overextension that they're a bit thin on the ground particularly in East Asia.

[00:04:44]What are your thoughts on that? Look, the United States has always been able to conduct major conflict simultaneously in different parts of the world. Uh would we rather if we are China focused, would we rather have two of those three aircraft carriers in that region? Of course. Um but we don't. We are able to juggle with both hands and more than one crisis at a time. But right now China is not a crisis. So, I sure listening to the chairman of joint staff who I think has the ear of a lot of people in the United States.

[00:05:19]He is concerned about the stress on the force but not to the point where he believes the force is in peril and unable to do their missions.

[00:05:29]General Mark Kimmitt, thank you so much for joining us. There we go.

[00:05:33]US former US assistant secretary of state for political military affairs.