Killing the Cedar Revolution

When Israel responds to attacks on its soldiers by bombing Hezbollah and Hamas, I say bomb away. God has more than sufficient capacity to sort them out. I understand that in the Middle East, one must acquire a certain retaliatory credibility.

But at the risk of provoking the mother of all flame wars in the comments section, I cannot understand why Israel is also bombing bridges and runways that belong to the newly elected government of Lebanon, which had neither a role in the attacks nor the capacity to prevent them. Remember the Cedar Revolution that gave us such hope, so recently? The Lebanese government is just beginning to consolidate its fragile nation state after decades of civil war and Syrian occupation. It’s in no condition to take on Hebollah, which still controls half of Lebanon’s territory with its Iranian and Syrian backing (have you seen Michael Totten’s blogging about his travels in Hezbanon?).

A long-term solution to the terror that plagues both Israelis and Lebanese isn’t amenable to a hot-tempered response, although doing serious damage to Hezbollah’s infrastructure will briefly advance that cause (the effect will be fleeting if it’s not sustained). A more prudent Israeli response would be to gradually build its alliances with Lebanon’s more moderate Sunnis, its smattering of moderate Shiites, and with its Druze and Christian populations. The intelligent move is to build non-Hezbollah Lebanon into a viable nation-state capable of regaining control over its own South and the Bekaa Valley, by that particularly Levantine combination of force and diplomacy. Attacking the Lebanese government for failing to do what it lacks the capacity to do — reign in Hezbollah — seems counterproductive in the extreme, and harms the U.S. interest in spreading democracy in the region.

Worse, this could offer Syria the justification to gradually reinsert itself into Lebanon, which had proven to be a lucrative colony. It could even complicate our own fragile alliance with the Iraqi Shiites.