The Middle East crisis has erupted into violence once again. It began on Wednesday when Hezbollah took two Israeli soldiers prisoner. Israel began a bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, and within a few days had expanded it throughout most of the country. Hezbollah has promised “open war” against Israel, and has launched rockets as far as Haifa and at Israel’s fleet in the Mediterranean Sea (click here for full summary). The quickly escalating violence has highlighted policy dilemmas facing both the Bush Administration and the global community at large.

For the Bush Administration, this conflict has put its two signature foreign policies at odds with each other. On one hand, the Administration has tried to “spread democracy” around the globe; thus, it applauded Lebanon’s democratic elections earlier this year. On the other hand, the Administration has declared a global “war on terrorism,” calling on all countries to join in eliminating terrorist organizations. Israel’s most recent military action in Lebanon is intended to disarm a globally-recognized terrorist organization. Currently, the Administration has extended its moral support to Israel, stating that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” while stipulating that Israel should try to respect the fragile democratic government in Lebanon. The Administration must confront the question of what happens when a democracy is too weak to control international terrorist groups operating within its own borders.

Previously, the two policies have not clashed in such a dramatic way, and the Administration may have even been operating under the assumption that violent terrorist organizations could not flourish and survive in democracies. However, the current crisis presents a direct trade-off for the Administration, in which it must decide how to balance the two policies in a situation where they conflict with each other. For the time being, at least, Bush has appeared to favor combating global terrorism.

It may, however, be wrong to frame this as a question that only the Bush Administration is facing. The global community has, with a few notable exceptions, agreed with combating global terrorism as a policy objective worthy of pursuing. This is not to say that various countries and even people within the same country have not disagreed on how to pursue that aim. However, international law is a state-based system. How, then, should Israel deal with a non-state actor launching attacks on its territory, if this actor launches the attacks from a sovereign nation? Much of the international community has criticized Israel for the sheer force of its attacks on Hezbollah, attacks which are devastating much of Lebanon. The international community must settle on how to balance the need to combat terrorism with the need to retain state sovereignty. For both the Bush Administration and the global community at large then, the question is not one of if Israel should deal with Hezbollah terrorists, but rather one of how it should do so.