Against the backdrop of mixed signals from the US and Israel regarding when their joint war against Iran will stop, back-channel talks have been activated to explore a possible end sooner rather than later.
Speaking off the record, several sources said that Iran has been exchanging messages with regional and international players indicating an intention to work towards an end to the war, provided that all strikes on its territories are suspended immediately and without prior conditions.
Diplomatic sources have listed France, Russia, and Turkey and even some Arab Gulf states, despite their dismay at the Iranian strikes in their territory, as being at the forefront of these back-channel talks.
They explained that the immediate objective is “de-escalation”, at least in the sense of avoiding a more complicated situation that could undermine the chances of stopping the war any time soon. They added that it is a much more complicated task to fully stop the war.
“I cannot say that there is exactly an initiative on the table on how to end the war, but I can say that there are consultations happening and that many capitals [both inside and outside the region] are trying to stop this war as soon as possible,” said an Egyptian official.
“Nobody wants this war to last for months, given the incredible economic cost that many countries will have to put up with.”
Before the end of its second week, the US-Israeli war on Iran has already had disturbing economic consequences, including a spike in the prices of crude oil, the suspension of over 90 per cent of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the expectation of a slow-down in traffic through the Suez Canal, and an energy scare across Europe and Asia.
“Clearly, this is unsustainable, but the geopolitical consequences of a prolonged war, under the pretext of eliminating Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, are huge,” the official said.
“Lebanon is already the scene of really disturbing consequences from the wider scope of the war.”
According to UN estimates, by the 10th day of the war, on 10 March, close to a quarter of a million people had been displaced in Lebanon, with many more likely to be on the move as Israel expands its parallel war in the country.
This is being carried out under the pretext of dealing a final blow to the remaining capacities of the pro-Iran Hizbullah group in the country after over two years of Israeli operations against the group and its leadership.
Several diplomatic sources who spoke this week said they were not expecting a fully-fledged Israeli ground invasion beyond the Litani River.
However, they said that it is almost inevitable for the Israeli army to occupy significant parts of Lebanese territory south of the river. “Israel has a golden opportunity to reoccupy territories that it had to forego over 25 years ago under the pressure of Hizbullah” in May 2000 after over 20 years of occupation, said one source.
Addressing a high-level meeting via videoconference on 9 March, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi stressed the need for Lebanon to be spared from falling into a new period of havoc or invasion and to support the Lebanese government in exercising its legitimate prerogative of controlling arms “and to continue the process of disarming Hizbullah.”
Held to consult over ways of containing the regional escalation, the meeting was attended by the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, and the presidents of the EU Council and EU Commission.
According to an Egyptian diplomat who has served in Israel, “much of what is happening in the war and how it unfolds is really decided by [Benjamin] Netanyahu, who has been very successful in lobbying the US president and his Christian Zionism circles.”
According to Amal Murad, a former Egyptian diplomat with insight into US Middle East policy, there is another key issue. “Trump is convinced that for him nothing is impossible,” she said.
She added that this is perhaps one of the consequences of his assumed success in the case of Venezuela, when he kidnapped the former head of state in January.
However, according to Murad, the Middle East is a different story, and the current war is going to have different ramifications. In the case of Lebanon, she argued, it is almost a zero-sum game because “Israel will not stop short of fully disarming Hizbullah, and Hizbullah will not agree to being fully disarmed because this would amount to the end of the group.”
Beyond the worry over the volatile situation in Lebanon, there is equal concern over the stability of both Syria and Iraq. Israel is attempting to mobilise the Kurds in both countries to join ranks with the Kurds of Iran against the Tehran regime.
Ankara is also a firm opponent of any Kurdish surge, and all three governments are hostile to any increase in the influence of pro-Iran groups across the region, particularly in Iraq.
“This is precisely where the Israeli scheme for Iran interacts with its scheme for the wider region. Israel wants to see the disintegration of the established states in the region and not just Iran,” said Alaa Al-Hadidi, a former Egyptian diplomat with insight into Israeli policies.
In press statements he made on Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that it is not acceptable for foreign powers to try to rework geographical lines in the region.
In statements on social media earlier this week, Amr Moussa, a former Egyptian foreign minister and Arab League secretary-general, warned that the consequences of the US-Israeli war on Iran will challenge the Arab region as a whole.
“The current war on Iran is not just an Israeli adventure in which Netanyahu has managed to get the US on board,” Moussa wrote. Instead, it is “a planned American scheme that is being conducted with Israel, a regional partner to the US, in a bid towards changing the Middle East, including the Arab world, into [a new] geopolitical regional [system] that Israel is trying to lead.”
An Arab League foreign ministers meeting that was conducted via videoconference on Sunday addressed the ongoing war and its consequences. However, the meeting’s resolutions focused on the Iranian strikes against targets in the Arab Gulf countries.
The meeting condemned these strikes and underlined the right of the Gulf countries to defend their interests.
In an interview with the US TV network PBS on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he had earlier warned of retaliation if the US attacked Iran.
“Since we cannot reach American soil, we have to attack its bases in the region, together with its facilities and installations,” he said.
While the Arab countries that are not in the immediate geographical vicinity of the war have so far only suffered from economic consequences, there seems to be considerable apprehension that if the war continues, they might suffer more disturbing consequences. They mostly worry targeting US installations and facilities on their territories.
However, according to Egyptian sources, the biggest concern is about the way the region will look when the war ends.
Many of the sources who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly this week do not expect the war to topple the Iranian regime.
They argued that what is really at stake is the regional order, together with its balance of power, security, and key interests.
Contrary to earlier statements, where Trump anticipated the war could last for four to five weeks and maybe more, on Monday he said that the war on Iran was “very complete” and “will end very soon”.
However, in Cairo on Tuesday, two Egyptian officials said that it is too early to say that the war is really coming to an end unless Israel agrees to it.
They argued that they do not see an agreement being reached on this front, given the last-minute cancellation of a trip to Israel scheduled for Tuesday by Trump’s Middle East advisors Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 March, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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