Lebanese soldiers armed with American-made M-16 rifles
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The recent skirmish on the Israel-Lebanon border has amplified fears that the Middle East could be on the brink of another war. So the fact that U.S. Special Envoy Senator George Mitchell arrived in Israel this week hoping to restart peace talks ought to offer some reassurance. But it doesn't. The reason: Obama's peace process doesn't involve those who could clash with the Israelis this summer. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who Mitchell will cajole to talk directly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is not at war with Israel, and will remain on the sidelines if new hostilities broke out, just as he did during last year's Gaza war.
The forces on the front lines of the gathering storm -- Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Syria -- are allied with Iran, and the Obama Administration is maintaining its predecessor's policy of trying to diplomatically isolate the self-styled "Axis of Resistance." Some limited overtures have been made to Damascus, largely in the hope of separating Syria from Iran. But absent any move to end Israel's occupation of Syrian territory on the Golan Heights, those will come to naught. The Administration has also made limited overtures to engage Iran on the nuclear issue, using Iran's defiance to strengthen the case Washington makes to less sanguine partners that Iran should be isolated. But it has precious few channels to the relevant leadership should hostilities break out along Israel's northern border or in Gaza. On both of those fronts, an uneasy calm is maintained not by any agreements, but by each side's awareness of the damage they could suffer, both physical and political, in a new confrontation. Still in both cases, the antagonists operate on the assumption that a new shooting war is inevitable at some point.
The Bush Administration's diplomatic boycott of the "resistance" camp failed to stem their rising influence, cemented the alliance of its component parts, and left Washington and its Western allies with precious little access to important decision makers. That may not have bothered the Bush Administration much, because it imagined the region locked in a fight to the finish between "moderates" and "radicals" -- a grand alliance of Arab moderates who would join with Israel and the U.S. to vanquish Iran and its allies. Stability was not the Bush Administration's priority. When anxious Europeans pressed Washington to help end the disastrous 2006 Israeli war against Hizballah in Lebanon, then Secretary of State Condoleezza famously responded that she had "no interest in a return to the status quo ante." But, of course, that's largely what resulted, because the projection of force by the U.S. and Israel in the region has failed to eliminate the "radicals."
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