EU Effort to Blacklist Hezbollah Fails

Here’s an interesting headline’s role reversal:

“The EU lists Hezbollah as a terrorist organization”–plausible but false.

“The Gulf Security Council designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organization”–implausible but true.

Europe’s failure to list Hezbollah as a terror organization is a byproduct of its inability to change its world view on the Middle East even after the harsh reality check of the last two years.

As if to embarrass the EU more, there’s also Egypt’s President Mohammad Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood, who after breaking diplomatic relations with Syria last week stated that “Hezbollah must leave Syria; there is no place for Hezbollah in Syria.”

The Arab world’s more decisive action may not have been determined by either moral clarity or a principled stance–not, at least, in the way we would understand those terms to be. Still, the Sunni powers can tell friend from foe; know the price of losing; and are prepare to put their money where their mouth is.

Europe can’t even do that.

Is it any wonder that, foreign aid aside, the EU matters little in the Middle East?