“It is Lebanon’s tragic destiny to be sacrificed”

“How Lebanon Was Lost” is a fine analysis by James Traub on America’s confused Lebanon policy.

I really like this paragraph:

There is a kind of symmetry between the naiveté of the Bush administration’s controlling belief that it could sow the flowers of democracy in rocky Arab fields and the naiveté of Obama’s belief that a new posture of respect and understanding could win over recalcitrant states and publics in the Middle East.

And the lesson for America?

The case of Lebanon vindicates no grand theory of statecraft. If anything, Lebanon just illustrates how hard it is for outsiders to fortify fragile states and how easy it is to do harm. It is a reminder, in case one needed it, that problems don’t get solved in the Middle East; they just linger on, growing more interesting and complex and intractable.

Great..