This is not good:
France, the United States, the United Nations and Lebanon itself have all refused to accept responsibility for stripping the Lebanese Shiite militia of their weapons, despite a key element of the UN resolution that calls for the group to give up its firepower and vacate the southern part of the country.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday that his force will not be pressured into disarming, and he gained key support yesterday from Lebanon’s Defence Minister, Elian Murr, who has refused to take up the task of disarmament.
Just so that we're clear here: despite the fact that the world has said Hezbollah must be disarmed, nobody is actually going to disarm them. Are we expecting Hezbollah to do so of its own volition? Have the past six years not given anybody any indication of their intentions to, um, not disarm? Mark my words: this peace arrangement will be broken within a year unless somebody steps up and makes Hezbollah give up their weapons. Expecting Lebanon to do it is a red herring; the government has demonstrated its impotence over the past six weeks, and to expect them to magically have the ability or the willingness to force Hezbollah's disarmament now is wishful thinking.
7 comments:
Boy, this is a real challenge for the international community. This is clearly an Afghanistan-style scenario whereby Hezbollah will not willingly give up arms freely and the international forces may need to act with force. I think the biggest gain for Israel is the fact that the issue of Hezbollah disarmament is now painfully clear to Europe and N.America. (ie. Hezbollah disarmed or war) This G&M article indicates interest from a dozen countries. It's certainly time for the U.N. to demonstrate it's effectiveness or lack thereof.
Sadly Brian I fear that we already know how the UN is going to demonstrate its commitment to its pronouncements, we just don't want to have to admit it.
we already know how the UN is going to demonstrate its commitment to its pronouncements
God, I used to be so, "Whoo hoo, United Nations - nations of the world working together!" I cringe. Kofi Annan should be thrown in jail for abuse of (global) public trust and abandonment of duty. And I MEAN that - jailed.
On Hezbollah/Israel:
Gee, I can't WAIT to see how that one turns out. The suspense is killing me!! Will a ceasefire truce hold? Or not? Oh, I just can't figure it out!!
I believe, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, it could yet happen to his son if the UN oil-for-food investigations go further. Hopefully he'll be replaced by someone a little more capable and willing to stand up and enforce the word of the organization.
I hope his son is jailed! I find it hard to believe that dad, working at the exact same organization and in charge, is innocent... but we'll see. :)
Holy cow! France only wants to give 200 ground troops to Lebanon. Yep, one of the most important U.N. peacekeeping missions in years is off to a terrible start. Turkey might be the perfect nation to supply troops since they have been an ally of Israel.
200?!? That's a pretty mere pittance for a state with that size and wanna-be influence. If the wanted to demonstrate a role and stick it to the Americans (as Chirac loves to do) they could have taken a much larger lead. Still, 200 more troops than we're going to be sending, it seems.
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