Cosmopolitics by Elise Labott

Cosmopolitics by Elise Labott

The Iran deal’s inconvenient math on Lebanon

Hezbollah remains the central fact that nobody can quite agree how to discuss.

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Elise Labott
Jun 24, 2026
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There’s a fiction being maintained in Washington right now, and it’s getting harder to sustain by the week.

The fiction is this: that the Lebanon-Israel talks happening in Washington this week - the fifth round since April - are somehow separate from the broader U.S.-Iran framework. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as much on Tuesday, arguing that the…

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