From Keith Porter,
Your Guide to Globalization Issues.
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[H3] July 15, 2006

The fighting between Israel and Hizbollah is sad, scary, and certainly has some potential for spreading. Coverage on pan-Arab satellite television stations has been non-stop, so everyone in the region is following the events in real time.

The reaction to the fighting uncovers all kinds of fault lines within the Arab world. Marc Lynch, author of "Voices of the New Arab Public" wrote in his blog:

"Arab regimes are reacting in a very restrained fashion, but that doesn’t mean that Arab public opinion feels the same way. My sense is that most of the pro-American regimes just want this crisis to go away, and are hunkering down and trying to stay out of the way (kind of like the United States, frankly)."

Staying out of the way seems to be the focus of U.S.

foreign policy at the moment. A summary of U.S. statements on the fighting is available on the State Department Web site. Mostly the U.S. has called for restraint.

Marc Lynch writes:

"American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on all this, at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this – you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn’t seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for “restraint” which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now? The idea that Palestinian-Israeli relations could be cordoned off from wider Middle East questions was always misguided. It’s now become actively destructive to all of our interests in the region."

"The only reason I’m not calling more loudly for Bush to get involved and take a leadership role in the conflict is the expectation that he would probably do the wrong thing. But at this point, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The Bush administration right now looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic... which is better than batshit crazy (like the folks who are demanding that America either smile on or even join in a war with Damascus and/or Tehran), but not nearly as good as exercising actual grown-up leadership at a time when the world could really, really use some."

One complicating factor in all of the policy decisions is the mixed feelings across the region regarding Hizbollah. Remember that Hizbollah is basically an armed political party operating outside of any typical nation-state control. And there are some in the Arab world who would not mind terribly if Hizbollah went away - although they would never say this in public - and the current conflict has the potential to put a practical end to the organization.

Passport, the blog of Foreign Policy magazine, has a summary of this is in a post titled "Death Knell for Hezbollah?"

So, what is the U.S. foreign policy role in all of this? An analysis in the San Francisco Chronicle said the best thing the United States can do is try to contain the conflict. "'No one can do it except for us,' said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. 'If we don't do it, this thing can become a broader regional conflict.'"

On the other hand, the United States can't even talk to several of the players in all this. "'The real awkwardness is that the United States doesn't have leverage over (most of the warring) parties. It also has no contact with them,' said [Robert] Malley, who was a key member of then-President Bill Clinton's negotiating team at Camp David in 2000."

"The United States considers both Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations and refuses to deal with either of them. It is involved in a diplomatic standoff with Iran over that nation's nuclear program and has had no diplomatic relations with Syria since February 2005, when Washington called back its ambassador in Damascus in an effort to pressure Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and to stop militants from crossing into Iraq," according to the Chronicle story.

More Coverage From Your About.com Guides

• U.S. Role in Middle East Crisis One of Diplomacy (U.S. Government Information)
• Hezbollah v Israel - Facing A Crisis (Conservative Politics: U.S.)
• The Powder Keg That Is The Middle East: Ignited? (U.S. Politics: Current Events)
• Information Lines for Security of Americans in Lebanon (U.S. Government Information)
• Hezbollah Captures Two Israeli Soldiers (World News)
• Israel at War (Judaism)