[W]hile Mr. Bush worked to draft Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates into a reinvigorated containment strategy for Iran, and while U.S. and Iranian warships played chicken in the Strait of Hormuz, another conflict between Washington and Tehran was quietly unfolding in Lebanon. There, a stalemate between the pro-Western government of Fouad Siniora and the Hezbollah-led, Iran- and Syria-backed opposition threatens to throw the country into turmoil. …
The implications for the United States of the political power play in Lebanon are huge. Hezbollah’s push to undermine Lebanon’s U.S.-supported government has the group’s Iranian and Syrian backers poised to expand their influence westward and to turn Lebanon into another major regional battlefield in the cold war between Washington and the Tehran/Damascus axis. …
Continued pressure thus needs to be applied to the regional powers to encourage a peaceful resolution to the crisis and to prevent a takeover by forces hostile to Lebanon’s sovereignty. Both the United States and France have rightly chosen to pursue a policy of diplomatic isolation with Damascus until progress is made toward a resolution. While engagement with Syria may be crucial for long-term plans for peace in the region, any dialogue with Damascus must not sacrifice Lebanon up to the regional powers eager to gain a stronger foothold in the small Arab country.
The return of Arab League chief Amr Moussa to Beirut may provide the best hope for fruitful dialogue between the two sides through a renewal of the league’s Lebanon initiative. But Lebanon may remain without a president for a long time to come. Given the implications for peace and stability in the region, this is not the news Mr. Bush hoped to bring home from the Middle East. Access the full article>>