Six countries, including the U.S. and the U.K., officially classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, yet Hezbollah’s popularity and influence continues to spread because of its ability to combine soft power with military might. Since the early ’80s, Hezbollah has grown from an Iranian-supported gang of anti-Israel guerrillas to a well-organized, well-armed political party holding 14 of the 128 seats in Lebanon’s parliament. It also supports of many social projects, like schools, hospitals and news services.

I cannot even pretend to have a solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict. But it’s clear that America’s military strategy could benefit quite a bit from taking a few pointers from Hezbollah’s ability to gain popular support through its soft power efforts.

CNN recently reported that America’s approval rating in Turkey has dropped almost 50 full points to 9 percent since 2000. What are we doing? Just a few years ago, America had the world on a string, and now that string has turned into a fuse, and any second the world could blow up in our faces. U.S humanitarian aid can’t even make it into half the Middle East because it’s seen as tainted.

I can admit that I actually thought the Catholic Church made its first mistake by not pre-approving the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. I saw the televised pictures of “weapons of mass destruction.” If I could’ve, I would’ve pushed the preemptive strike button. Catholic Church: 1, Gavin Finnegan: 0.

Unfortunately, we are stuck in Iraq. How can Hezbollah be gaining popular support while the world’s premiere superpower is struggling just to survive? It’s not that we don’t give enough aid – we give the most. It’s not that we don’t care – I know we do. The problem is we don’t actually do anything. For instance, Americans care about the people who can’t afford health care, but we don’t do much about it, so why should we start respecting the dignity of life in the Middle East?

Hezbollah has realized that its goal of transforming Lebanon into an Islamic state is not practical, and it has temporarily abandoned its strategy and focused much of its resources on providing assistance to the people of the Middle East. Unlike Hezbollah, America doesn’t seem to realize that forced coercion will never work. We have planted the seed of democracy in the sand, but we are trying to water it with bullets. We cannot force democracy to take root, we can only promote it.

America should have used force only when necessary, and that means utilizing supranational bodies like the United Nations Security Council to impose international resolutions for Hezbollah to disarm. Unfortunately, there has been so much bloodshed that America might not have the ability to salvage even its image, let alone goals. Yet the Middle East, especially Iraq, deserves some help. Iraq deserves America’s humanitarian aid and peacekeeping.