On Thursday, Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s prime minister-designate, stepped down, bringing a long-simmering political crisis to a head. The next day, there were riots in Tripoli over shortages of fuel, electricity, and medicine, while the Lebanese pound, which has rapidly been losing value, hit on a new low. The central bank is meanwhile heading towards collapse and a potentially devastating new wave of the coronavirus threatens. Jonathan Spyer asks the obvious question:

What went wrong? What went wrong was discernible [in 2007, if not earlier]: there were two powers in Lebanon. The first, represented by the March 14 movement, was ostensibly forward looking, oriented toward the West, toward commerce [and] normality. The other power was that of Iran, via its oldest franchise, the Lebanese Hizballah movement. [It] had its own military power, which outmatched that of the state and dwarfed the other irregular military presences in the country. It had its own economy, too, its own sources of income, its own smuggling routes.

The project of the Iranian element was that the two Lebanons should continue to exist indefinitely. The former was to provide a convenient carapace of normality and legitimacy beneath which the latter could continue its allotted tasks in Teheran’s long war against Israel. Supporters of the March 14 project had a tendency to avoid the discussion of hard power issues. This in retrospect was to prove fatal.

Any chance that the Lebanon of March 14 might mount a defense in arms of its vision of the country ended in the events of May and June 2008. In a brief conflict on the streets of Beirut, the forces of Amal, [another Shiite militia group], and Hizballah contemptuously brushed aside the haphazard military mobilizations of the pro-March 14 Sunni and Druze forces. From this point on, the die was cast.

From Israel’s point of view, there is little to be done but to continue to guard the borders. . . . [I]nternational aid should be made contingent on the disarming of the Iranian proxy, and the thoroughgoing reform of the political system. Any other remedy runs the danger of offering support to Lebanon’s current Iran-created dysfunctionality.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.