The words “ceasefire” sound reassuring. In the case of Iran, it is rather misleading.
Two weeks of ceasefire is not peace. It is time, and in the Middle East time is often used for reconciliation, not reconciliation.
Behind the rhetoric of “victory”, the reality is different. Iran has taken serious blows: its defence and navy have been dismantled, a significant part of its missile capabilities have been destroyed and the regime has, in large part, disintegrated. At the same time, its economy is in a tragic state. The regime is surviving, but it is not as strong as it tries to show.
There is also the internal front. The mullahs rule through repression, with at least 30,000 protesters dead in January alone. The Iranian leadership is not only under pressure from outside, but also from within. And history shows that such regimes are hard to sustain in the long term.
Over the other side, the picture is no clearer. Donald Trump appears weakened, with open fronts in Ukraine, Gaza and now Iran. None of these conflicts have been resolved. Instead, they create a grid of instability with no clear way out.
A ceasefire, then, is not a solution. It is afragile balance between vulnerabilities. Everyone buys time: Iran to regroup, the US to redefine its strategy, Israel to keep the pressure on. Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to end those who threaten Israel’s existence, and the ceasefire does not include Lebanon. Operations against Hezbollah continue.
The terms of the conflict have not changed. The tension is not going away, it is just freezing. And that makes the next phase even more unpredictable.
Two difficult weeks are beginning. The real question is not whether the ceasefire will hold, but how the US and Iran can converge when suspicion prevails and their goals remain so distant.
As for Israel, it will not sit at the same table with the mullahs nor will it make any deal with a regime that, for 50 years, has been promising its own destruction and continues to fund Islamist organizations in the region, notably Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis.
The road is still long…
