By Striking Jordan, Iran Sent Lebanon a Message: It Won't Be Sidelined

As Lebanese President Joseph Aoun prepares to meet Donald Trump in Washington, Tehran is signaling it will resist any diplomatic effort that sidelines its influence in Beirut

July 20th, 14PM July 21st, 11AM

At first glance, Iran's Sunday attack on Jordan was unrelated to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's visit to Washington, where he is slated to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Its timing, however, suggests Tehran was sending a pointed warning about the diplomatic track taking shape in Lebanon.

Jordan is a longstanding ally of the United States that hosts thousands of American soldiers and dozens of aircraft. The kingdom hosts thousands of U.S. troops and serves as a key hub for both American operations and regional air defense against Iranian missiles and drones. Unlike Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf states, Jordan hasn't barred the United States from using its territory and its airspace to attack Iran, even though it has not been and still is not an active participant in these attacks.

By extending its attacks to Jordan Iran is trying to assert control over the escalation. The move may also reflect a strategic shift Tehran has discussed in recent weeks: abandoning "proportionate" retaliation in favor of seizing the initiative rather than allowing Washington to dictate the pace of escalation.

This may also explain Iran's decision to raise the stakes of its targets. See, for instance, its attacks on a water desalination facility and a power plant in Kuwait, and its threats to attack energy infrastructure if Washington carries out its threats to attack such infrastructure in Iran.

Iran's claims that it conducts only "surgical strikes" have long rung hollow. It has repeatedly struck energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, along with other civilian targets. Yet Tehran has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, dismissing such incidents as "collateral damage" despite ample photographic evidence to the contrary.

This isn't the first time Iran has struck Jordan since the latest round of fighting began. But whereas June saw only two such attacks, the repeated strikes this month suggest a broader escalation strategy aimed at demonstrating Tehran's ability to ignite new fronts beyond the Gulf and its immediate borders.

This isn't just part of the vision senior Iranian officials voiced when they spoke of the need to exact a price from countries that help the United States attack Iran and its desire to get them to oust the U.S. military from their territory. Alongside the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz and its nuclear program, Iran is also waging a fierce diplomatic battle to maintain its grip on countries it deems to be within its sphere of influence and in which, until recently, its ability to dictate policy was considered self-evident.

The two most prominent are Iraq and Lebanon. Both countries' governments are waging a fierce political battle against Iran's bastions of military and political influence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who took office in May, has moved quickly to integrate Shi'ite militias into the Iraqi army, an effort that began under his predecessor, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, without great success. Al-Zaidi met with Trump last week, signed economic cooperation agreements and promised that by September 30, when U.S. forces are supposed to finish withdrawing from Iraq, he will ensure that any armed group that isn't part of the army lays down its arms.

Whether he succeeds is another matter. This is a minefield, and there's no guarantee that Al-Zaidi will be able to get through it. Nevertheless, the very fact that he made such a public promise has put Iran on alert.

Lebanon, the second diplomatic front, is even more important and more urgent for Iran. Beirut has signed a U.S.-brokered framework agreement with Israel, agreed to a pilot withdrawal arrangement in southern Lebanon and begun deploying its army into additional areas.

Taken together, these steps demonstrate Beirut's willingness to act independently of Hezbollah. More importantly for Tehran, they undermine its effort to tie any future agreement with Washington to a Lebanon arrangement on terms acceptable to Iran.

In his meeting with Trump on Tuesday, Aoun is expected to ask Trump not only for security guarantees, but also to request guarantees that Israel will comply with all its obligations under the framework agreement and ask Trump to set a timetable for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the country.

In addition, Aoun will try to persuade Trump that the Lebanese issue is an inseparable part of the war against Iran, and that the Lebanese front can provide him with his most important diplomatic achievement.

He is arriving in Washington armed with broad Arab support. The most important element of this support is the growing military and diplomatic coordination with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who has quickly become Trump's protégé.

Aoun's most important mission is to persuade Trump to let him deal with disarming Hezbollah on his own terms, so that Lebanon doesn't collapse into civil war.

After Al-Sharaa politely but forcefully rejected Trump's proposal that Syria be put in charge of dealing with Hezbollah, since "I think they'd do a better job," and after Trump indicated that he intends to demand that Israel withdraw from the territory it has occupied in Syria, Aoun will ask Trump to replicate this position in Lebanon and thereby allow it to advance the diplomatic negotiations with Israel and launch a process that could disconnect Lebanon from Iranian influence, even if in the short term, Hezbollah would retain its weapons.

This direction worries Iran, which can't control the Lebanese government's behavior. This was evident from remarks last week by two Hezbollah members of the Lebanese parliament, who spoke about "severing ties" with the government in Beirut.

"President Aoun has become a political player orchestrating division among the Lebanese instead of being a president who is a symbol of national unity," said one, Hassan Fadlallah.

His colleague Ali Fayyad said of the government, "Our problem with it has become big, very big. Bridges with it have been severed, any possibility of understanding has become impossible and the result will be undesirable." Nevertheless, they refrained from threatening an overt armed conflict with the Lebanese army.

The Lebanese government's demonstrated political independence is a critical test that worries Iran, especially since it has already lost Syria. And this may well dictate its moves on other fronts.

Just as it has sought to do in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is signaling that it will not tolerate regional diplomacy that sidelines Tehran. In its view, the Middle East remains a single strategic theater. Any attempt to resolve Lebanon's future without its consent – or to dismantle Iran-aligned militias in Iraq – could be met with escalation elsewhere, whether in Jordan, Iraqi Kurdistan or Yemen.