Mark Dubowitz says Trump holds ‘maximum leverage’ over Iran as ceasefire begins
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Basis for Protection of Democracies, analyzes President Trump’s agency Iran coverage following a two-week ceasefire settlement. He highlights the regime’s weakened state after 15 months of Trump’s administration, making Iran’s 10-point peace plan with “ridiculous calls for” unlikely to be accepted. Dubowitz discusses the selection dealing with Iran’s new regime.
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The shortage of a two-week pause within the combating between Israel and Hezbollah seems to be a dealbreaker for Iran’s regime because the ceasefire takes impact.
Whereas the Trump administration maintains the deal doesn’t embrace the Tehran-backed terrorist motion Hezbollah, Iran is threatening to make use of that exclusion as a strain level towards the U.S., probably collapsing the whole ceasefire.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote on X that “The Iran–U.S. Ceasefire phrases are clear and specific: the U.S. should select—ceasefire or continued struggle through Israel. It can’t have each. The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is within the U.S. courtroom, and the world is watching whether or not it would act on its commitments.”
IRAN REVEALS 10-POINT PLAN FOR PEACE WITH THE US – HERE’S WHAT’S IN IT
Rescue employees seek for victims on the website of an Israeli airstrike that hit a crowded neighborhood south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (Hussein Malla/AP)
His feedback have been later echoed by Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, citing Israeli assaults in Lebanon. Earlier within the day, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key middleman in ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Iran over Operation Epic Fury, stated the two-week ceasefire would come with Lebanon.
Hezbollah reneged on a U.S. negotiated November 2024 ceasefire by coming into the war against Israel on March 2025 to help Iran. Many specialists say long-term regional safety depends upon Lebanon’s government and army disarming the fear group.
Hezbollah al-Mahdi scouts parade with huge portraits of Iran’s late chief Ayatollah Khomeini, foreground, and Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, background, throughout an occasion for Jerusalem day or Al-Quds day, within the southern city of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. The final Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan is noticed in lots of Muslim nations as Al-Quds day, as a means of expressing assist to the Palestinians and emphasizing the significance of Jerusalem to Muslims. (Hussein Malla/AP)
Edy Cohen, an Israeli safety professional on Hezbollah, who was born in Lebanon, instructed Fox Information Digital that “Hezbollah won’t ever disarm itself. From its perspective, it protects two million Shiites. The one strategy to defeat Hezbollah is to first outline it as a terrorist group. To not permit its political wing to exist and likewise to order the Lebanese military to assemble within the areas beneath its management space by space.”
He added that “Dismantling Hezbollah should be carried out in levels. The Lebanese authorities should first take possession of the heavy weapons. To not permit it to pay attention besides in Dahiya [a Beirut suburb that is a Hezbollah and Shiite stronghold]. Go away it in a single place and management all of the roads resulting in it. Little by little, it may be dismantled. Israel can’t and mustn’t disarm Hezbollah. It will probably solely help with bombing from above.”
TRUMP’S IRAN CEASEFIRE ROCKED WITHIN HOURS AMID REPORTED MISSILE, DRONE ATTACKS
U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago membership on December 29, 2025, in Palm Seashore, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Photographs)
On Wednesday, the IDF stated it hit over 100 targets in 10 minutes, together with, “Hezbollah headquarters, navy arrays, and command-and-control facilities: Intelligence command facilities and central headquarters utilized by Hezbollah terrorists for steering and planning terror assaults towards IDF troopers and Israeli civilians.” Reuters, quoting the nation’s well being ministry, stated some 91 folks have been killed in Beirut, with a complete of at the least 182 killed nationwide on Wednesday.
The IDF added, “The big-scale strike was based mostly on exact IDF intelligence and was deliberate meticulously over weeks. A lot of the infrastructure that was struck was positioned inside the coronary heart of the civilian inhabitants, as a part of Hezbollah’s cynical exploitation of Lebanese civilians as human shields with the intention to safeguard its operations. Previous to the strikes, steps have been taken to mitigate hurt to uninvolved people as a lot as potential.”
Because the struggle began and earlier than Wednesday’s assaults, Israeli airstrikes have killed greater than 1,530 folks in Lebanon, in accordance with the Related Press. The Lengthy Struggle Journal notes “that neither the Lebanese Well being Ministry nor Hezbollah has supplied an official depend of the group’s fallen fighters.”
Hezbollah terrorists are proven on this picture. A “terrorist community” funded and operated by Hezbollah and Iran has been foiled within the United Arab Emirates, in accordance with a report. (Fadel Itani/NurPhoto)
Guila Fakhoury, whose father, Amer, was kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2019, instructed Fox Information Digital that “Iran and the IRGC are occupying Lebanon by their proxy Hezbollah.”
Fakhoury, who was born in Lebanon, stated, “Nearly all of Lebanese folks consider the actions of Hezbollah caused Israel to occupy southern Lebanon and don’t need Iran and Hezbollah. Hezbollah is threatening the whole authorities.”
VANCE WARNS IRAN WILL ‘FIND OUT’ TRUMP IS ‘NOT ONE TO MESS AROUND’ IF CEASEFIRE DEAL FALLS APART
A mourner holds a poster depicting Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, proper, the successor to his late father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, as supreme chief, through the funeral procession for senior Iranian navy officers and civilians killed through the U.S.-Israel marketing campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
Because the president and co-founder of the Amer Basis, a corporation devoted to assist households of unlawful detainees and educate on Middle East coverage and geopolitics, she stated is seeing some optimistic steps being taken together with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun calling for negotiations with Israel.
She stated the “solely answer is to have peace with Israel. I believe there quite a lot of Shiites who’re towards Hezbollah… Nearly all of the Lebanese folks simply need peace. We hope the Trump administration will push the Lebanese authorities and Israel’s authorities to begin peace talks.”
Final week, Iran’s regime defied Lebanon’s expulsion order for its ambassador by saying he would keep, additional rising tensions in a rustic within the crosshairs of the newest fighting between the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Israel.
Lebanon had declared Ambassador Mohammad Reza Shibani “persona non grata” to weaken Iran’s diplomatic presence and have a chargé d’affaires at its embassy as a substitute. However the deadline to go away the nation was Sunday and an Iranian spokesperson stated the ambassador’s mission in Beirut continues.
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Fox Information Digital reached out to Lebanon’s authorities and the Embassy in Washington D.C. for a remark.
The Related Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
