An intriguing news story appeared on January 7 in Lebanese newspapers. It claimed that the US envoy to Lebanon, Morgan Ortagus, had expressed her reluctance to attend a session that day of the so-called Mechanism, the five-party committee to discuss implementation of the ceasefire agreement reached between Lebanon and Israel in 2024, because she saw them as “repetitive and where no major progress is being made”.
Whether the quote was correct or not, one thing that is undeniable is that Ms Ortagus is impatient with the slow pace of Hezbollah’s disarmament by the Lebanese state. But this begs a couple of questions: Did the administration of US President Donald Trump ever seriously believe that such a process would be smooth? And if it did, what does this tell us about its competence?
The quality of any negotiation often depends on the quality of the party mediating.
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