Are we finally witnessing a maturity of approach in the Obama administration’s handling of the Middle East and particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict? One hopes and the evidence leans in that direction. Consider this:

• With a late December deadline on “reassessing policy” on Iran rapidly approaching, the White House is widely signaling that it is prepared to enlist harsh sanctions against Tehran. Likewise, administration officials are specifically saying that the military option is not off the table.

• There is a rapprochement of sorts between Jerusalem and Washington, with both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu praising each other for recent actions – a reality absent for much of the past year.

• Last week, the president told Lebanese President Michael Suleiman that while progress has been made on enforcing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 – a response to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War – the process is incomplete.

Part of that resolution demands that Hezbollah disarm. It refuses to do so. Meanwhile, its Iranian-supplied weapons continue to enter the country from venues such as Syria. Recently, the Israeli army captured a boat in the Mediterranean with 300 tons of military supplies heading toward Lebanon and that were assuredly meant for Hezbollah.

Indeed, few people are as abused as the Lebanese. Their tiny nation on the Mediterranean Sea, once known as the Riviera of the region, has since the 1970s been better known as the cradle of terrorism. Indeed, it was there at the Palestine Liberation Organization fled after being tossed out of Jordan in 1970. And today is there that the Hezbollah movement – which has killed more Americans than any terrorist group other than al-Qaeda—holds sway over the country’s south as well as Beirut’s cabinet.

Mr. Obama’s team now seems to be fully engaged on the many interlinked woes facing the Middle East and the Israeli-Arab conflict in particular. Now that they are approaching the anniversary of their first year in office, they finally seem poised to move.