Amerikas nye mareridt: Libanons nedtur i kaos

Israel’s offensive in its northern neighbor alarms Biden officials, who say it could turn into a battlefront between Israel and Iran, create a new humanitarian catastrophe, and even drag in the United States and neighboring Arab countries as combatants. For more than a year, officials have said that it is Israel’s conflict with the Lebanon-based militia Hezbollah, not its war with Hamas in Gaza, that poses the greatest risk to the United States.

So far, however, U.S. diplomacy has failed to stabilize the situation, which a top aide recently warned had “escalated out…   of control.” And U.S. officials and analysts now say it is increasingly likely that President Biden will hand off the crisis to his successor.

“This is a conflict which can at best be managed or contained,” not fully resolved, said Aaron David Miller, a longtime Middle East peace negotiator at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Some senior U.S. officials have called Israel’s devastating campaign against Hezbollah an opportunity to reshape the politics of Beirut and stand up a stronger Lebanese government, reducing the influence of Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran. An empowered Lebanese Army with strong government backing is the only way to keep Hezbollah from reconstituting along Israel’s border and avoid further Israel military action, officials and analysts say.

To some, it is a fanciful goal.

While Hezbollah is clearly weakened and Iran may feel intimidated by Israel’s recent displays of military prowess, both retain influence that they are unlikely to surrender easily.

And the United States has an unhappy history of efforts to shape foreign governments, one riddled with costly misjudgments, moral lapses and local outrage. The United States has a particularly painful history in Beirut, where a Hezbollah bombing in October 1983 killed 241 American military personnel on a peacekeeping mission. Many other Americans were kidnapped or killed there in subsequent years.

“The American experience in Lebanon is a tragic one,” Mr. Miller said.

That history is not lost on U.S. officials, even as they try to find some way of assuring Israel that Hezbollah will not simply regroup after the current fighting ends.