The Cease Fire That Sort Of Is
The cease fire seems to be holding, and the Lebanese cabinet has approved the army's deployment to the south. This is the very least that Lebanon can do to implement the two applicable security council resolutions that call for Hezbollah's dismantling: 1559 and the recently passed 1701. However, the deployment had to be negotiated with the representatives of the Hassan Nasrallah's illegal, private army. Hezbollah's military commander even claims that the the resolution had nothing to do with Hezbollah's arms, a triumph of propaganda over reality.
It is this flaw that I still believe marks resolution 1701 for its demise. The UN has asked a weak state to do the job they could not tolerate leaving to a strong state, indicating the international community does not want the job of disarming Hezbollah done in the first place. Coupled with the fact the UNIFIL force will go into Lebanon virtually unarmed, and we can see that the hope of the security council, led by the French, is not for peace but for quiet, even though war is almost guaranteed to to break out again. That the U.S. fooled itself into thinking the French were a good faith partner will prove one of George Bush's most shameful errors. It is wrong of the Bush administration to pull its support from the only force, Israel, willing to do the work the security council has mandated, especially because Israel will ultimately be the victim of Hezbollah's survival.
However, events have a habit of unfolding in unexpected ways. The moves that seems inevitable in the chess board of global affairs are undone by some random new factor. Perhaps we will see one here, and Israel will be liberated from the threat of Hezbollah despite the ineptitude and mendacity of the UN, the Lebanese cabinet, and the French.
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