Iran is pulling back since President-elect Donald Trump won the election—according to former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis as he discussed the strife between Israel and Hezbollah—adding that Iranian officials are “concerned, they’re nervous—they ought to be.”
While speaking on The Cats Roundtable with John Catsimatidis last week, Stavridis spoke on the impact of Trump’s second term on the world. Stavridis noted three key areas: the Middle East, trade relationships around the globe and Ukraine-Russia war negotiations.
“You see Iran pulling back, they’re concerned, they’re nervous, they ought to be. Team Trump will take a very aggressive stance towards Tehran,” Stavridis said on the Middle East.
He then pointed to Iran’s air defenses getting “crushed” in a recent attack on Israel, adding that the country is “very vulnerable.”
“What that means is that in the fight that Israel continues to have with Hezbollah to the north of Israel and Lebanon, you’re seeing Hezbollah willing to go to a ceasefire. I think that’s a direct result of the presence of a new Trump administration coming on,” Stavridis added.
Newsweek has reached out to the Trump transition team via email Monday night for comment.
A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese political movement and paramilitary group, came to fruition last week as both parties agreed on a 60-day period of no violence. On Monday, Israel said that Hezbollah reportedly broke the agreement after firing into a border zone.
Speaking on the ceasefire agreement, President Joe Biden posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying, “Under the deal reached today, the fighting across the Lebanon-Israel border will end tomorrow. Lasting security for the people of Israel and Lebanon cannot be achieved only on the battlefield – that’s why I directed my team to work with the governments of Israel and Lebanon to forge a ceasefire.”
Biden added that the agreement “brings us closer to realizing a future I’ve been pushing for my entire presidency where the Middle East is at peace, prosperous, and integrated across borders.”
Rajan Menon, professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York, sent Newsweek his article in The New Statesman arguing that it is “wrong” to attribute the ceasefire to Trump winning the election, when reached for comment.
Menon added in his email to Newsweek: “Hezbollah had it own reasons to agree to a ceasefire (whose durability remains unclear). One is that it has suffered significant losses during Israel’s air and ground campaign and needed time to regroup. A second is that its political strongholds in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern outskirts have been hard hit by Israel’s attacks: civilian neighborhoods have been destroyed and people have been displaced in large numbers. It’s important to realize that Israel had its own reasons to agree to a ceasefire, which would not been possible otherwise. So not everything that happens in conflicts like these can necessarily be traced back to political developments in the United States, important though they obviously are for Americans.”
Iran and Israel have also been in the throes of recent attacks on each other. Most notably, Iran fired nearly 200 missiles at Israel in October in retaliation for Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, the Associated Press reported. Israel responded with targeted attacks near Tehran, Iran’s capital.
Stavridis continued his conversation with Catsimatidis, saying if your candidate in the 2024 presidential election won, “don’t gloat about it” and if your candidate lost, “don’t whine about it.”
“Let’s figure out a way to give thanks together as Americans and think about how we can approach the world today,” Stavridis concluded.
