On Friday, 27 June, in a room at the US State Department, Lebanon’s ambassador to Washington — with zero diplomatic credentials prior to this post — signed her name to a “framework agreement” with Israel. US secretary of state Marco Rubio beamed that it was “the beginning of the beginning.” As usual, in spite of American imperial pomp the ‘agreement’ is not what it appears, as Al Jazeera reported: he agreement does not force Israel to withdraw from the large area of southern Lebanon that it continues to occupy, and Israel also appears to be signalling that it will continue its…