The Road to Nowhere: Everyone's Strategic Failures in Lebanon

July 21, 2006

No one can dismiss the role of luck, or the possibility of miracles, in war. No one can afford to count upon them. It is only luck and miracles, however, that are likely to give any side any kind of meaningful victory in Lebanon. Unless the current fighting somehow really does lead to the disarming of Hezbollah, a flood of aid to Lebanon, and a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian war of attrition, the mid- to long-term outcome will be as bad for any apparent "victor" as the "defeated." The Israelis will lose, Hezbollah will lose, and so will everyone else.

It is all too easy to take sides at times like this, or focus on the moment, but from a strategic perspective, everyone seems headed down the wrong road.