There was a ceasefire agreed between Iran and the US and Israel in the recent US-Israeli conflict against Iran aimed at preventing the latter from acquiring nuclear weapons. Then, amid skirmishing during this ceasefire, which remains in official effect, Iran showed its duplicity by welching on the terms of the ceasefire by insisting, de novo, that Israel’s conflict with Iran’s terrorist satrap Hezbollah, operating in Lebanon, was actually a part of that ceasefire agreement.

That conflict is a separate matter between Israel and Hezbollah, and never has been a part of the ceasefire. Iran’s insistence that it is is Iran’s confession that Hezbollah is an instrument of Iran’s terrorist government, and that lately insistence is a demonstration (as if another one is needed) of the Iran government’s duplicity and intrinsic untrustworthiness.

President Donald Trump (R) has long made clear his abhorrence of war, with its broad destruction and civilian casualty rate. The conflicts Trump has fought despite that abhorrence are emblematic of that, with their brevity, sharpness, and precision, which have vastly limited civilian casualties, including during the current conflict with Iran. In this latter case, sharpness and precision have limited destruction to Iran’s nuclear weapons development-associated facilities and military facilities and personnel. Civilian damage, damage to civilian infrastructure has been remarkably constrained.

Therein lies Trump’s mistaken imperative. In his desire to bring a diplomatic end to the conflict with Iran, he is overemphasizing his abhorrence for death and destruction by acceding to Iran’s insistence that Israel’s separate conflict with Hezbollah be included in any ceasefire agreement: Israel must end its conflict with Hezbollah. Trump pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing that separate ceasefire.

This is a broad mistake, and it will lead only to a prolongation of both conflicts with concomitant increased death and destruction. The better answer would have been (and still could be) to require Iran and Hezbollah work a separate peace with Israel and to resume full out attacks on Iran, this time with a view to destroying its ability to fight at all, with the conflict continuing in full force until Iran’s government men and women agree to forswear in a provable way its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, including an official statement acknowledging that the Strait is international waters and that Iran has no ambition to control it.