A few months ago, Lebanon arrested Amer Fakhoury, a former senior officer in the South Lebanese Army, the Israeli-backed force that served as a bulwark against terrorist groups based in that country from 1979 until 2000. Fakhoury was arrested at the behest of Hizballah, which had hoped to exchange him for one of its financiers who is currently in U.S. custody. Thanks to pressure from the Trump administration, and the threat of sanctions from the Senate, Fakhoury was released two weeks ago—without any reciprocation by Washington. Yoni Ben Menachem explains why this matters:

Hizballah objected to the release of Fakhoury and tried to torpedo it, but in the end the Lebanese surrendered to American pressure. In Lebanon and the Arab world there is much criticism of both Beirut and Hizballah on social media, alleging that [both] made a deal with the American president to release Fakhoury. As a result of this harsh criticism, the head of the military court in Lebanon resigned.

The Lebanese government is keeping quiet and the head of Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah, denied that there was a deal between Hizballah and the American administration. Nasrallah called for setting up a committee to investigate how Fakhoury was released. In a television interview, he admitted . . . that there was a great deal of pressure put on the Lebanese government and that Hizballah strongly opposed Fakhoury’s release.

The bottom line is that this is a tremendous achievement and victory for President Trump over Hizballah and over the Lebanese government. Nasrallah is trying to cover up his failure, but he will not succeed because it is obvious that both Hizballah and the Lebanese government surrendered to American pressure.

As for the charges of torturing and killing prisoners on which Fakhoury was arrested, although they have been repeated uncritically in the American press, they rest on the shakiest of foundations.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.