Steven Simon and Jeffrey Feltman
The Middle East is where clever foreign policy initiatives go to die. This has been the case since at least the Cairo Conference of 1921, at which British Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill—who had to be reminded repeatedly who was Shiite and who was Sunni, and what the difference was between them—devised a plan, in the space of ten days, to ensure long-term British interests in the region. Among other things, he created the state of Iraq, to minimize the cost of occupying the area while protecting British access to India; embraced British mandatory rule over Palestine, to secure the right flank of Egypt and the Suez Canal; and strangled Syrian independence by handing the territory to the French, in exchange for French acquiescence to Britain’s control over Iraq and Palestine. But instead of saving money and preserving British influence, these moves eventually ignited strife across the region and led to the end of British authority in the Middle East.
The truth is that, except for the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt and a 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, through which the United States fostered enduring peace among the three countries, it is not easy to identify a successful Western policy initiative in the Middle East. And the list of failures is long indeed.
Despite this dismal track record, there are crises that still demand a U.S. policy response. The spiraling conflict in Lebanon, which pits the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah against Israel, is one of them. As is typically the case, the United States, owing to its self-conceived indispensability, as well as its influence with key belligerents, a willing American electorate, and an immense military capability, is the only actor capable of formulating a response that could prevent further escalation and suffering in Lebanon.
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