TLDR: America is frantically trying to find a way to de-escalate the situation using backchannels to talk to Iran. Iran has rejected the US's request to hit largely symbolic targets in order to avoid embarrassment following the strike on the US base earlier. The US may try cyberattacks (as it can be rationalized as not really a military attack - which works if everybody believes it does, I suppose) and probably strikes in Iraq and Syria. The suspension of attacks by Kataib Hezbollah does strongly suggest that some kind of deal is in the works for the US to withdraw from Iraq in exchange for de-escalation, though Nuland has personally said that a withdrawal from Syria isn't going to happen (we shall see). Israel's crisis, however, continues unimpeded. The extent to which this is a good cop/bad cop routine or whether the US is genuinely trying to de-escalate while Israel is instead trying to escalate has been hotly debated for a long while now, but regardless of which theory you believe, Israel does seem to at least be threatening a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon - perhaps to "encourage" the US to stay and keep fighting rather than de-escalating and offering Iran further control over the region. There are lots of rumours about a deal between Israel and Hamas and what precisely it could involve. Naked Capitalism said a day or two ago that reports were that Hamas has escalated its demands (e.g. for an end to apartheid etc) in a show of strength, whereas Simplicius here seems to be saying that the deal would merely be an all-for-all prisoner exchange with a ceasefire that is either a couple months long or permanent. Netanyahu has publically denied that they will take this deal as he wants to project strength, but reports are reports.

Last time we left off with American troops suffering some of their first ever direct deaths at the hands of “Iranian proxies”, inflaming major retaliatory talk by the Biden administration. But the latest clarifying updates reveal that a whirlwind of ‘secret negotiations’ has ensued behind the scenes, with the Biden administration desperately trying to signal an “understanding” with Iran without losing face. These are complex and multi-faceted talks because there are rumors of the direct and indirect involvement of many parties, including Hezbollah. In general, it can be summarized as: Israel is on a scorched earth tear, and the US is running behind it with a fire extinguisher, desperately trying to keep the flames under control.

The most significant of the rumors states that US has tried to ‘quietly’ send signals to Iran via Swiss embassy back channels, which is the main go-to method they’ve used for a long time:

It was reported, that the U.S. offered through the Swiss embassy to Iran, to strike one of their sites but Iran should not retaliate. This would allow the US to save face. Looks like it was REJECTED:

“The US sent more than one message to Tehran over the past two days via third parties. Washington's messages said that it did not want an open war and warned that expanding the war would be met with the US action. Tehran rejected Washington's threats and said targeting its territory is a red line, and crossing the line would be met with an appropriate response. Tehran's message said that it does not want a war with Washington either, but it will forcefully confront any American adventure.” — Iranian sources to AJArabic

Let’s piece this together. First, the above report states that US basically begged Iran to allow it to strike some symbolic targets with the promise that Iran would not retaliate, so that US can get a lick in and save its reputation on the world stage. Iran reportedly replied that no attacks on its territory would be allowed. What’s interesting about this is that subsequent reports stated that US is now shifting to potentially a wider scale campaign of attacking Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, but not directly attacking Iranian territory. However, they are considering doing cyberattacks on Iran, which would be a sort of ‘compromise’ as it would technically affect Iranian territory but not in an overt physical way. You can see how ridiculous this type of theater gets, as US policy has devolved into nothing more than a delicate and performative balancing act, all for the sake of protecting its golden calf of Israel in the region.

This aspect of it has dominated headlines, but what has been lesser reported is the ongoing secret negotiations between Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, and co. While the US tries desperately to keep Israel from fanning the flames, the US itself works round the clock to try and patch together a deal that could potentially satisfy all parties. On account of this, there have been several unconfirmed reports in the past day or two that Israel is now considering a total cessation of hostilities via a full exchange of all prisoners and hostages. However, Netanyahu has gone on TV to vehemently deny this and to state that operations will continue until “full victory”. But that could just be grandstanding as byproduct of his politically precarious situation; at the moment, he’s loath to show any perceived weakness, and has to keep pumping himself up with this false bravado to keep the vultures at bay.

As potential fruits of this herculean labor, we get the following new reports: Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah says it suspends attacks on US forces

Namely, the most powerful and influential of the ‘Iranian-backed’ groups which has been launching strikes on US forces has suddenly declared it will ‘suspend’ its attacks. That means that the negotiations have seemingly satisfied the parties in agreement—for now—that de-escalation should ensue. If this de-escalation also follows through its momentum into a major historic ceasefire in Gaza as well, then it will have essentially been a pinnacle Iranian triumph in full, as it will have meant that Iran managed to bully the US into acceding to all its demands while gaining vast influence and prestige over the region.

The obvious implication here, which I had alluded to last time, is that there are further secret negotiations behind the scenes for US’ withdrawal from the region. Presumably Iran has signaled that the only way to de-escalate is to present concrete outlines for the withdrawal of US forces. So this will be the area to watch in the coming days and weeks, to see if the US signals further acquiescence on this account, or makes any new announcements regarding official plans or talks that may sketch out a timeline, even a loose one, for some type of withdrawals. It should be mentioned though that days ago Victoria Nuland made it “clear” that US will not be withdrawing from Syria—but it’s difficult to know on whose behalf, precisely, she’s speaking. One gets the impression that her deepstate clan inside the government is so powerful that she’s sometimes given uncommon license to make opinionated declarations which have no actual statutory backing, but may later be rescinded simply because no one dares to gainsay her at the time, and she’s given more of a free hand to ‘interpret’ official policy at whim.

Given these developments, we could potentially read Israel’s recent saber-rattling toward Lebanon/Hezbollah as being a sort of wishful signal toward the US—perhaps even a threat which is meant to say: “Do not dare back down against Iran now or we will embroil you in something far larger and force your hand.” One thing is clear: Iran doesn’t want escalation, the US doesn’t want escalation; both are in a sense responding to Israel’s provocations and dancing around them. Israel is in the driver’s seat here, to an extent. If Israel signs a ceasefire, Iran could back off and ‘release’ the Red Sea routes, freeing the Western world from economic strangulation. Everything the Houthis/Ansar Allah have been doing is in response to Israel’s actions for the most part. It was recently revealed that even Saudi-flagged ships are being permitted transit in the Red Sea.

This is likely not only a result of Iran-Saudi rapprochement, but also the fact that Saudi Arabia rejected US’ request for KSA to join its Red Sea operation ‘Prosperity Guardian’—further proof that Ansar Allah’s operations are aimed primarily at Israel and its actions. Lastly, if all else fails and the Empire wants to keep escalating, Ansar Allah are reportedly ready to likewise up the ante in ways that could seriously wound the beast at their door. Interestingly, there’s now reports that a Yemeni missile has come the closest ever to hitting a US ship, bypassing the vaunted AEGIS system and making it all the way up to the last line of resort: the CIWS. Even the ‘experts’ are worried. The report details:

CNN reports per 4 Defense Officials that yesterday's interception of a Houthi ASCM by USS Gravely (DDG-107) was at a range of around 1 mile or 0.86 nautical miles and was shot down by the ships CIWS. This is the first specifically reported instance of a Houthi missile/drone interception by CIWS. This is the closest interception to date the others being within 5-10 miles away.

This is extremely uncomfortably close. To be shot down at under 2km means if the missile was going at, let’s say, Mach 2, which is 2500km/h, it would have been only 2-3 seconds away from hitting the ship. At Mach 3, it was 1.5 seconds away from striking the ship. That’s what you call a close call. At the same time, they claimed to have shot down another Yemeni ballistic missile with an SM-6, US’ most advanced and expensive air defense missile, with a hefty price tag of $4.3M. And Houthis have apparently been finding what has been matched by experts to be exactly SM-6 (rather than SM-2, etc.) carcasses all over the beaches. Just further confirmation that US is expending a huge amount of its most precious and expensive AD systems. Not to mention the Houthis continue to get closer and closer.