Financial Times Editorial - Lebanon needs an international force
Financial Times Editorial - Lebanon needs an international force
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: July 19 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 19 2006 03:00
The call by Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, for a strong international force to stabilise south Lebanon and act as a buffer between Israel and Hizbollah should be heeded. To be sure, the history of international intervention in Lebanon is between mixed and disastrous. It may not work this time either but the alternative is to watch Lebanon be destroyed and to stand idly by as this conflict escalates into a regional conflagration.
The UN force would need to be bigger even than the force of about 10,000 that Mr Annan and European Union leaders appear to be contemplating. It also needs to have a robust mandate and unqualified international support.
It should be possible to build this out of UN Security Council resolution 1559, jointly sponsored by the US and France in 2004, which, in addition to calling for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, mandates the disarmament of remaining militias and the deployment of Lebanon's army throughout the country, including to the border with Israel.
Hizbollah is not just a militia but a state-within-the-state. Inspired by Iran, it operates under licence from a Syria that uses it as an armed proxy to project regional power.
After Israel withdrew from Lebanon under Hizbollah's fire in 2000, and after Syria pulled its troops out last year in the uproar over its role in the murder of Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, Hizbollah came to a crossroads. But instead of taking up its role as a national force, part of the solution to Lebanon's reconstruction, it chose to become part of the problem by seeking vaingloriously to be the region's Islamist vanguard.
The Lebanese army is too weak to do anything about it and would split on sectarian lines if forced into a confrontation. The existing UN force in south Lebanon, there since Israel first invaded in 1978, is too small and has had to coexist with battle-hardened Hizbollah forces. That is why a big UN force, eventually working alongside the Lebanese army, is needed to secure the border area and place Hizbollah beyond rocket range of north Israel.
First, Israel needs to agree to a ceasefire. Then there needs to be mediation over the Israeli soldiers captured in recent weeks. The UN should also take over from Israel the Shebaa farms - the arcane dispute that Damascus brandished on Hizbollah's behalf only hours after Israeli troops left Lebanon in 2000. The new UN resolution should make clear to Syria that further meddling in Lebanon will invite a severe response.
Israel, echoed by the US, is resisting UN involvement, trying to win more time to crush Hizbollah. That is almost certainly a vain endeavour, and using an air force to do it is killing hundreds of civilians and making refugees of hundreds of thousands more. Israel should remember there was no Hizbollah until it invaded Lebanon in 1982 - in an equally vain attempt to crush the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: July 19 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 19 2006 03:00
The call by Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, for a strong international force to stabilise south Lebanon and act as a buffer between Israel and Hizbollah should be heeded. To be sure, the history of international intervention in Lebanon is between mixed and disastrous. It may not work this time either but the alternative is to watch Lebanon be destroyed and to stand idly by as this conflict escalates into a regional conflagration.
The UN force would need to be bigger even than the force of about 10,000 that Mr Annan and European Union leaders appear to be contemplating. It also needs to have a robust mandate and unqualified international support.
It should be possible to build this out of UN Security Council resolution 1559, jointly sponsored by the US and France in 2004, which, in addition to calling for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, mandates the disarmament of remaining militias and the deployment of Lebanon's army throughout the country, including to the border with Israel.
Hizbollah is not just a militia but a state-within-the-state. Inspired by Iran, it operates under licence from a Syria that uses it as an armed proxy to project regional power.
After Israel withdrew from Lebanon under Hizbollah's fire in 2000, and after Syria pulled its troops out last year in the uproar over its role in the murder of Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, Hizbollah came to a crossroads. But instead of taking up its role as a national force, part of the solution to Lebanon's reconstruction, it chose to become part of the problem by seeking vaingloriously to be the region's Islamist vanguard.
The Lebanese army is too weak to do anything about it and would split on sectarian lines if forced into a confrontation. The existing UN force in south Lebanon, there since Israel first invaded in 1978, is too small and has had to coexist with battle-hardened Hizbollah forces. That is why a big UN force, eventually working alongside the Lebanese army, is needed to secure the border area and place Hizbollah beyond rocket range of north Israel.
First, Israel needs to agree to a ceasefire. Then there needs to be mediation over the Israeli soldiers captured in recent weeks. The UN should also take over from Israel the Shebaa farms - the arcane dispute that Damascus brandished on Hizbollah's behalf only hours after Israeli troops left Lebanon in 2000. The new UN resolution should make clear to Syria that further meddling in Lebanon will invite a severe response.
Israel, echoed by the US, is resisting UN involvement, trying to win more time to crush Hizbollah. That is almost certainly a vain endeavour, and using an air force to do it is killing hundreds of civilians and making refugees of hundreds of thousands more. Israel should remember there was no Hizbollah until it invaded Lebanon in 1982 - in an equally vain attempt to crush the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 12:44 PM
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