Sadness and dread as the next Lebanon war looms

“We’ve seen this movie before.” People often say that about wars in the Middle East, but it isn’t true. Each one is a unique catastrophe, with its own combination of horrific causes and effects. Every innocent child that dies during these wars is a human soul that will never be replaced.

I’ve been covering the Middle East for nearly 45 years, and I’ve grown to hate these wars and the immense suffering they bring to both Israelis and Arabs. It’s like watching people trapped as a violent hurricane approaches. Each time, you hope they can escape and disaster can be averted. But too often, they can’t.

The spillover of the Gaza war into Lebanon this month might have seemed inevitable, but it wasn’t. This was a war that both sides had hoped to avoid. The Biden administration, knowing the terrible cost, has been trying to find an exit ramp for 11 months. But the hard logic of war proved stronger than the soft logic of peace. Hezbollah wouldn’t stop firing rockets; Israel wouldn’t stop retaliating. The two sides moved up the ladder — and the United States couldn’t stop them.