To understand today’s crises in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, one must grasp their shared Lebanese connection. This assertion may seem odd. After all, what’s the big deal about Lebanon? That little country hasn’t had top headlines since Israel deigned to bomb and invade it in 2006. Yet, to a large extent, the roots of the bloody tangle now enmeshing the Middle East lie in Lebanon: or to be more precise, in the Lebanon policy of Israel.

Rewind to the era before the War on Terror. In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s “dovish” Prime Minister, was assassinated by a right-wing zealot. This precipitated an early election in which Rabin’s Labor Party was defeated by the ultra-hawkish Likud, lifting hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu to his first Premiership in 1996.

That year, an elite study group produced a foreign policy document for the incipient administration titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The membership of the Clean Break study group is highly significant, as it included American neoconservatives who would later hold high offices in the Bush Administration and play driving roles in its Middle East policy.

“A Clean Break” advised that the new Likud administration adopt a “shake it off” attitude toward the policy of the old Labor administration which, as the authors claimed, assumed national “exhaustion” and allowed national “retreat.” This was the “clean break” from the past that “A Clean Break” envisioned. Regarding Israel’s international policy, this meant:

“…a clean break from the slogan, ‘comprehensive peace’ to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.”

Pursuit of comprehensive peace with all of Israel’s neighbors was to be abandoned for selective peace with some neighbors (namely Jordan and Turkey) and implacable antagonism toward others (namely Iraq, Syria, and Iran). The weight of its strategic allies would tip the balance of power in favor of Israel, which could then use that leverage to topple the regimes of its strategic adversaries by using covertly managed “proxy forces” and “the principle of preemption.” Through such a “redrawing of the map of the Middle East,” Israel would “shape the regional environment,” and thus, “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them.”

“A Clean Break” was to Israel (and ultimately to the US) what Otto von Bismarck’s “Blood and Iron” speech was to Germany. As he set the German Empire on a warpath that would ultimately set Europe ablaze, Bismarck proclaimed:

“Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided — that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.”

Before setting Israel and the US on a warpath that would ultimately set the Middle East ablaze, the Clean Break authors were basically saying: Not through peace accords will the great questions of the day be decided — that was the great mistake of 1978 (at Camp David) and 1993 (at Oslo) — but by “divide and conquer” and regime change. By wars both aggressive (“preemptive”) and “dirty” (covert and proxy).