Iran's foreign minister says that commercial shipping vessels may now pass through the straight of Hormuse again. The waterway crucial to global oil, gas, and fertilizer trade has been blocked by Iran for almost 7 weeks. Its reopening came after Lebanon and Israel agreed to a 10-day ceasefire. The truce should pave the way for direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese governments in the coming days. But Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he has warned the campaign against the militant group Hezbollah inside Lebanon. He says that's not over. Hezbollah was not part of the ceasefire talks, but it is apparently not standing in the way of the truce, at least for now. Well, joining me now is

Thanos Kanis. He's a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a leading analyst on Hezbollah and the Lebanese state. Theasis, it's good to have you with us. There are a lot of moving parts here to this story. Yesterday a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect. We know that Iran has been saying that Israeli attacks in Lebanon have to stop before the straight of Hormuse can be reopened. Today Iran announced that the straight of Hormuse is now open again to commercial traffic. A lot to understand here. What are your thoughts on this? Well, I'm not so optimistic and uh even with the opening of the Straight of Hormuz, I think the United States immediately countered with a reminder that it has not suspended its blockade.

So, I will reserve judgment on whether the straight is open until we see real shipping traffic going through it. And more broadly, uh not only are there an enormous amount of moving parts in this conflict, there also are some really fundamental irreconcilable differences. uh in terms of the expectation of what a sort of stable uh ceasefire will look like, I think Iran is not going to be willing to give up some of the coercive power it has established and certainly groups like Hezbollah are going to be unlikely to abide by the terms of a ceasefire that they themselves did not actively negotiate.

You bring up a good point. Um, Hezbollah is not was not part of the talks between Israel and Lebanon, but it appears to be refraining from interfering right now on the streets of Lebanon. So, what do you think Hezbollah is up to right now? So, this is a bit similar to the process that led to a ceasefire in 2024. The Lebanese government negotiated a ceasefire with Israel. Uh, Hezbollah criticized those negotiations, but then did honor them. Now, so that's the framework we've got on the table. Now, however, there's one really big uh well, there's actually two really big elephants in the room here. The first is that in all its previous ceasefires, Israel continued to attack after the ceasefire was announced. So,

these were not real cease ceasefires in the sort of classic term. We saw this in Gaza. We saw this in Lebanon. Um and we have indications that's what they'll continue to do in this case. The other piece of it is that Hezbollah is at odds with the Lebanese state. These are these are not aligned actors. The Lebanese state is involved in a uh is by the way the weaker party in a decadesl long fight for control over the territory of Lebanon. So these are not um these are not partners in the negotiation. Uh they are rivals for power. Uh and my view is that until we resolve those two things, in other words, have Israel genuinely willing to have some kind of ceasefire where it doesn't occupy land in Lebanon and

seizes attacks and also on the Lebanese side, uh an accommodation in which the state becomes strong enough to control Lebanon, which we're nowhere close to, we simply can't have an enduring ceasefire, much less some kind of genuine peace agreement. Last night in Beirut, there were scenes of people celebrating on the streets when they found out about this ceasefire. Who would you say that the people in Beirut, who are they thanking for this moment? Well, I mean, I'm in touch with a lot of people in Lebanon. I lived there for many years. Uh, I think people are relieved but not hopeful. Um, and we have some really uh distressing divergences within the Lebanese community. So there are some there are

some people who are celebrating simply the end for now of violent attacks on people the ability to go back to their homes uh which is of course wonderful for those people. But there are folks in Lebanon uh who have actually been applauding the attacks on Lebanon because they want to see outside powers uh Israel uh chiefly uh defang their internal rivals for power. Um, and that has created a whole another simmering uh conflict between pro-Hzbollah and anti-Hzbollah Lebanese that has come very close to outright violence. So, who are they thanking? I mean, I think some people I've heard thanking Israel. Other people are viewing this as a pause in a generational struggle against Israel. And that irreconcilable difference, I think, plants the seeds for future

rounds of conflict. Well, let me ask you this then. Who actually controls whether or not this ceasefire holds On the Lebanese side, is it the Lebanese state or is it Hezbollah? I mean, I'm worrying. I'm, you know, questioning how sovereign Lebanon is. It's not the Lebanese state. I mean, the Leban the Lebanese state has a very limited uh limited rate um and has a very limited power over some parts of the country. Uh I think the dynamic in Lebanon, by the way, is very similar to the dynamic more widely in the region visav Iran. uh the sort of dynamic actor here, Hezbollah, has spoiler cards, right? It can upend uh any kind of peace agreement. It can start wars. It can

trigger conflict. Um it however does not have it's not in control of Lebanon either. Right? So it has um it has this autonomous power to trigger war, which it has done multiple times since 2006. um it does not have the power to take over the Lebanese state itself and become an authority in its own right. And that yeah I mean that sort of frozen equilibrium uh keeps us trapped unless either Hezbollah becomes absorbed by the state, controlled by the state, it's always going to be able to flip over the apple cart. Um and that's the dynamic we've been I think suffering under uh since 2006. And just to be fair here, Israel as well has been a spoiler in this conflict, right?

It's not that it's not only Hezbollah that has escalated. I just want to be clear though about the role of Lebanon. Is Lebanon being asked then to enforce a ceasefire deal that it actually doesn't have the power um to implement? Absolutely. It's it's a magical thinking accord, right? So uh you know it's like the old thing uh we pretend to pay you, you pretend to work. In this case, uh the West uh pretends uh that the Lebanese state will disarm Hezbollah and enforce a ceasefire. And everyone involved knows that it simply cannot do that. It does not have that power. Uh and the hope it's it's almost like a faith-based hope that just no one no one will fight uh in this sort of

rickety ceasefire. And by the way, that worked from 2006 uh to 2023, right? there was this a similar like fictive uh agreement between Lebanon and Israel and Hezbollah didn't spoil it. Neither did Israel and that lasted for that was the longest period of non-conlict. I wouldn't call it peace between those two actors. Uh but the Lebanese state does not have the power and no one wants to give it that power. That's the other sort of missing piece here. They don't want uh Israel and the United States don't want to see a Lebanese armed forces that actually would have the power to disarm Hezbollah because then that would mean the Lebanese armed forces would also have the power

to defend Lebanon against Israel and they and they want to keep the qualitative military edge. I know that you have warned that military pressure on Hezbollah can backfire. Explain that. I mean why weakening it on the battlefield does not necessarily weaken it politically. Yeah, it has a very deep constituency that is very uh sort of generationally committed to resistance ideology toward the struggle both for its uh sort of sheer religious ideology and also its military struggle arm struggle against Israel. Uh it at times has engaged in overreach cyclally and every time it's done that, every time it's tried to play the role of regional power, it has been pushed back uh and sort of reduced back

to its natural size. Its natural size, however, we've just seen in the last month. After the most punishing military assault to which it has ever been subjected, including the assassination of all its senior leadership, it was able to rearm uh remobilize and wage a very effective military resistance campaign against Israel in the last month. And I think that shows the difference. Like we sometimes look at uh how much power can these groups project more widely through missiles and in terms of uh weakening countries across their borders, but we forget that their main uh power is what they can do in a infantry conflict on their own territory. And that power remains unddeinished and maybe even stronger even as they lose some of their

strategic reach uh to act internationally. briefly before we run out of time. So, if I'm understanding you right, um Hezbollah could actually be stronger or be even more entrenched in Lebanon because of this war than it was before the war. Is that a correct read? Right. And I mean, and the important thing to understand is that Hezbollah is part of Lebanon. It's part of the fabric of Lebanese society. It's never going to disappear. It's not some kind of foreign implant. It's not an Iranian proxy. Although it has a lot of ties to Iran and sometimes operates in service of Iranian aims, it is probably the most successful Lebanese movement at representing its own public. And that is why no matter how much military force

it's subjected to, it comes back strong because its supporters view it as their legitimate herald. The Nazis is combining us helping us to understand what is a complicated and complex story. Thank you, Brent. Good to talk to you.