For more on the wider war, we turn now to Barbara Leif. She was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs during the Biden administration. She's now a senior international policy advisor at the law firm, Arnold and Porter. Barbara Leif, welcome back to the news hour. Let's start with that meeting today here in Washington between the Israeli ambassador and Lebanese ambassador hosted by U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio. How significant was that meeting today between these two parties?

Well, on the one hand, it is significant, but it's significant more in symbolic terms and in substantive

terms. I found it interesting that Secretary

Rubio said at the front end of the meeting that he emphasized that this was the start of a process,

not just a single meeting. That was not even the framing that the U.S. accorded the Islamabad

talks over the weekend.

But in fact, this is a very fragile start.

We know Lebanese officials have been asking for this kind of a meeting for a while.

What's your understanding of why this happened now?

Well, I think, look, in fact, it was an important way to off-ramp a very volatile issue for the talks over the weekend in Islamabad. In fact, from Wednesday all the way through to Saturday when the two sides actually finally sat down, there was a great deal of volatility about the question of whether the ceasefire

would hold and whether the Iranians would in fact show up because of this dispute that went on

for days over whether or not Lebanon was supposed to had been agreed to be part of the ceasefire

region, if you will. And the U.S.

eventually took the position alongside Israel that it was not part of the deal. Although, strangely,

the Pakistani foreign minister said that it was. Well, you know, Israel says that it continues to

fight the war in Lebanon, that it has a stated goal of disarming Hezbollah, right, of removing them from any position of power and influence there.

The Israeli ambassador even said after the meeting that he called it a crushing victory over Hezbollah.

What about for Lebanese officials? What is the goal for them here?

Well, look, it's true that President Joseph Haun and

Prime Minister No'Av Salam have been asking since early March, since the onset of the war

and the devastating campaign, Israeli campaign in Lebanon, they have been asking for direct negotiations or discussions

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