– Photo: AFP
A couple of days ago, the wold breathed a cautious sigh of relief when it appeared that hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah would cease. Israeli troops are heading back to Israel as I type.
However, if one does a bit of reading (with the help of Google), one will find that this ceasefire seems to be heading towards collapse — quickly.
First off, there are major contradictions occurring with the interpretation of UN Resolution 1701. As the Jerusalem Post reports:
Annan angered Israeli officials when he told Channel 2 on Tuesday that “dismantling Hizbullah is not the direct mandate of the UN,” which could only help Lebanon disarm the organization. Annan upset officials further when he said that deploying international forces in Lebanon would take “weeks or months,” and not days as expected.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will have a talk with Annan today. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that room.
An official from Prime minister Ohmert’s office made it clear that Israel expects immediate results from the UN & Lebanon forces:
The IDF will have to resume operations in Lebanon if the expanded United Nations force being assembled does not fulfill its obligation to dismantle Hizbullah
…
“The resolution is clear that Hizbullah needs to be removed from the border area, embargoed and dismantled,”
…
“If the resolution is not implemented, we will have to take action to prevent the rearming of Hizbullah. I don’t think backtracking will serve any useful purpose. There has to be pressure on Hizbullah to disarm or there will have to be another round.”
How much of this is political rhetoric to save face is another question. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is, afterall, claiming victory for an Israeli attack which fell short of a few goals. A lot of Israelis agree. It may very well be more than rhetoric, though. The word “expeditiously” is being thrown out quite a bit now. And there seems to be a major disagreement about the timeframe for Lebanese troops securing the border.
This from a USA Today interview with Condoleeza Rice:
Q: Kofi Annan said that the French commander had said that it might take a year to get up to 15,000. Too long?
A: Yes, too long.
Q: Annan said weeks or months. Is that more of the timetable you see?
A: I think you’ll start to see real movement in weeks.
And with respect to the UN disarming Hezbollah — Rice agrees with Annan:
The 15,000-member U.N. force being created for southern Lebanon will keep the peace and enforce an international arms embargo, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday, but it won’t be charged with disarming Hezbollah guerrillas.
That job, she says, will be for the Lebanese troops.
However, she seems to contradict herself in the interview with USA Today. On the UN troops mandate she has this to say:
Q: What does ‘a robust mandate’ mean?
A: It has to have the ability to defend itself. Because you don’t want a circumstance where it’s fired upon or somebody challenges it and it doesn’t have the right to defend itself.
It also has to have the ability to defend its mandate, meaning if by force of arms some group tries to interfere with the mandate, which is to keep the south clear of arms and armed groups, that it has the right to respond.
“Keep the south clear of arms & armed groups”? But, I thought that was the Lebanese army’s responsibility? Which is it Condi?
As for what the Lebanese think of this “robustness” everyone else talks about?
Lebanese officials said they have largely dismissed the idea of disarming Hezbollah, which is more popular than ever among the country’s large Shiite Muslim population.
Instead, they spent Tuesday in tense discussions with Hezbollah representatives over how to allow the group’s fighters to keep their weapons while ceding military authority in southern Lebanon to 15,000 Lebanese troops and a yet-unformed United Nations peacekeeping force.
…
“The army won’t be deployed to south Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah — something Israel wasn’t able to do itself,” Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr said on Lebanese television.
I see. Let’s recap shall we?
- Israel will attack again if Hezbollah is not disarmed “expeditiously”.
- There is confusion about whether the U.N. will help disarm Hezbollah. Annan denies that it is the U.N.’s role.
- Lebanon says emphatically that it will not disarm Hezbollah with its troops.
Where does that leave us? Well, It’s all up to Hezbollah I guess. What do they have to say about this issue after emmerging “victorious” and being hailed as heroes throughout the Arab world?
…the two Hezbollah members [of the Lebanese government] told the Cabinet that the Islamic militia has no intention of disarming south of the Litani River, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) north of the Israel-Lebanon border, a senior Cabinet member said.
Hasan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, had insisted that any disarmament of his militia — even in the border area — should be handled in longer-term discussions within the Lebanese government, according to government ministers.
If this doesn’t already sound hopeless, consider this catch-22.
- Hezbollah will not disarm.
- The Lebanese army will not fully deploy until Hezbollah gives up controll of Southern Lebanon and/or disarms.
Lebanese officials made it clear that no Lebanese troops would be sent to southern Lebanon until a compromise is reached.
– Israel will not leave Southern Lebanon until The UN & Lebanon troops arrive.
Livni said earlier Sunday that Israeli troops would leave southern Lebanon only when the Lebanese army and an international force are in place.
Of course, this could be a big macho bluff-fest. However, if one considers the encouragement that the neocons have, supposedly, been giving Ohmert (according to Sy Hersh, recently) — I would say that this may be the calm before a very big storm.
I’m not even going to mention the fact that Iran will make a decision about it’s nuclear ambitions at the end of the month.