Why the Middle East Crisis Isn't Really About Terrorism

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Of course, Sunnis and Shi'ites do sometimes cooperate. Ali Mohammed, a former Green Beret who pleaded guilty to being an al-Qaeda agent, testified in 2000 that he had provided security for a meeting in Sudan between Hizballah security chief Imad Mughniyah and Osama bin Laden and that Hizballah had provided al-Qaeda with explosives training. If there was cooperation, it seems to have been short-lived; the two groups certainly aren't allies. Lebanese police in April arrested nine men that Hizballah officials claim were al-Qaeda agents plotting to assassinate their leader. In a recently published interview with the Washington Post's Robin Wright, Nasrallah slammed al-Qaeda. "What do the people who worked in those two [World Trade Center] towers ... have to do with war that is taking place in the Middle East?" he asked. Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri last week released a videotape about the fighting in Lebanon, but at least in the excerpts released by al-Jazeera, he conspicuously failed to encourage Hizballah in its fight against Israel or to so much as mention the group. Instead, al-Zawahiri spoke of the jihad--that is, al-Qaeda's jihad--being the one that would liberate Palestine.

THE RISKS FOR THE U.S.

Although Washington includes Hizballah as a war-on-terrorism target, the U.S., of course, isn't actually fighting the group; it is Israel that is paying that price in blood and treasure. Still, by taking the approach it has, the U.S. bears different costs. For one thing, Washington may not ultimately be serving as Israel's best friend. It has become clear that the Israelis didn't expect their offensive to escalate into a war so costly and messy. If Washington were playing its conventional, pre-9/11 role--calling for moderation from all parties--the Israeli officials could use that as a pretext for climbing down from their position that they won't stop fighting until Hizballah is demonstrably trounced.

The U.S.'s connect-the-dots view of terrorism also diminishes its power of persuasion. For Washington to succeed in putting together a multinational force to help the Lebanese government neuter Hizballah, it must win the participation of other states, perhaps France, Egypt and Turkey. But many governments by now are loath to go along with anything that sounds like an extension of the Bush doctrine. "If you compare Hizballah to the forces that flew planes into the World Trade Center on September 11," says a French diplomatic official, "you may lend your arguments more force, but it may also start undermining your support and credibility with people who won't agree with that commingling." Plus, encouraging Israel's continued onslaught puts the U.S. in the position of being blamed for mounting Lebanese civilian deaths.

Beyond that, the Bush Administration's with-us-or-against-us policy has cut off avenues of diplomacy that would be useful to pursue in this crisis. In the last major outbreak of Israel-Hizballah fighting in 1996, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher conducted shuttle diplomacy, traveling to, among other places, Syria, which along with Iran sponsors Hizballah. Having persuaded the Syrians to rein in Hizballah, Christopher achieved a cease-fire. Today the U.S. doesn't conduct high-level talks with Damascus principally because of Syria's ties to various terrorist groups.