Author: Habib Malik, Lebanese American University

In this article, Malik proposes a new approach to the search for peace and stability in the Middle East.

“Talk of an impending military showdown between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon rages these days in the media and the think tanks. As these drums of war beat ever louder the actual Lebanon-Israel border has never been quieter, and the mutual deterrence equation between the two sides that emerged following the 34-day war of summer 2006 appears alive and well and holding strongly. But you wouldn’t know it if you only tuned in to the swirling din of ominous warnings and apocalyptic expectations. Before any of this cacophony transits disastrously to the domain of the self-fulfilling prophecy, wiser heads need to pause and consider carefully whether all alternative options to armed conflict have been exhausted. One such untried option does readily spring to mind, but given the prevailing narrative that pinpoints the source of all evil in the Middle East and indeed the world as emanating exclusively from Iran, such an option, if not swiftly dismissed as an unworkable pipedream, is relegated condescendingly to the limbo of so-called out-of-the-box thinking…”

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