Russia is being considered as a potential player in a deal to halt the conflict raging between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, leveraging its unique position to prevent an even larger-scale war from erupting across a region consumed by crisis for more than a year.

Moscow has been supporting, not undermining, U.S. interests in the region.

It’s 10 years since NATO hammered defenceless Libya and French jets drove the mercurial President Muammer Gadhafi into a drainage tunnel where members of a mob killed him.