Israel will be forced to adopt a “double-policy” of both defying and obeying the US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU), a senior Israeli officer has said, as a shouting match between Donald Trump and a Republican senator cast doubt on the administration’s ability to sell the deal at home.
Brigadier General (res) Assaf Orion, former head of Israel’s military Strategic Planning, told the Daily Mirror that the 60-day window of the MOU – which agrees no fighting in Lebanon – leaves Israel having to manage within it and then beyond it. “Israel insists on disarming Hezbollah,” Orion said, adding that the group had “come back from the dead some kind of a Lazarus Hezbollah”.
“Israel faces a double-policy of defying and obeying the US-Iran deal, as Trump clashes with a Republican senator over the accord.”
The warning came as Trump clashed with Senator Bill Cassidy in a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans, according to multiple people who attended. Cassidy said the administration needed to better explain the agreement signed last week, which appears to fall short of the goals Trump set out at the start of the war. The exchange turned into a shouting match, but Senate Republicans later voted 50-47 to block a war powers resolution that would have directed Trump to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran unless authorised by Congress. Trump celebrated on social media: “This vote puts Iran on notice.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to reassure Gulf allies wary of the accord. Wrapping up a tour in Bahrain, he told reporters that allies shared serious concerns and wanted to be kept informed of every step. Oil prices fell to pre-war levels after Energy Secretary Chris Wright said shipments through the Strait of Hormuz were approaching levels seen before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February. But Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned vessels to stick to routes designated by Tehran, rejecting newly announced shipping lanes as “unacceptable and dangerous”.
Orion also noted Trump’s fury with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over attacks inside Lebanon. “What we heard from Trump is that he wasn’t happy with how it looked, and with the proportionality, and with the methods, to the point where he said ‘you don’t have to bring down a building because a Hezbollah member went in’.” Trump suggested that Syrian leader Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa – a former al-Qaeda operative – might “do a better job”.
The Iran war began on 28 February 2026 with a targeted strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the chief of the general staff General Abdolrahim Mousavi, the defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, and other senior officials, including the supreme leader’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen since. Iran responded by launching 1,471 ballistic missiles, of which 650 struck Israel, killing 27 civilians and one off-duty IDF soldier and injuring some 3,000 others. Hundreds more missiles landed in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, causing extensive property damage.