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Five Questions on Lebanon
By Maj P
A former Assistant SecDef asks some questions about the LebaNon-Peacekeeping force in today's WaPo.
Those questions are:
1. What is the mission of the force?
2. What will be the relationship of the force to the Lebanese government, and particularly to the Lebanese military?
3. Will the mission go beyond the purely military?
4. What will be the composition of the force?
5. What resources will be provided beyond the peacekeeping force?
These are entirely sensible questions, but he fails to address the central issue. Will southern Lebanon be a terrorist stronghold and thus the main battlefield in a continuous war? If so, no ad-hoc force blue-helmeted do-gooders will have the slightest effect. If however, Hezbollah is purged from the ground and its influence beaten down or broken, the result will indeed "benefit the people of Lebanon, Israel, the greater Middle East and the world at large."
ps: Meanwhile, war continues on the tactical level. Tactical actions aimed, that is, at the operational level: "The Israeli military, confirming the raid, said its commandos carried out the operation as part of an effort to prevent resupply of Hezbollah with weapons and munitions from Iran and Syria."
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Comments
Yep. Two monkeys, one football.
no ad-hoc force blue-helmeted do-gooders will have the slightest effect
Of course they'll have an effect; by their service as human shields, they'll make it harder (at least politically) to counterattack against Hezbollah. Yes?
Y'see, the thing is, if the French were actually committing a couple thousand troops for UNIFIL I would be fairly confident that somethign would get done. Say what you want about the French, when they actually do decide to fight they tend to do so pretty well, and they wouldn't put up with a bunch of toughs in kaffiyas telling them what to do. With UNIFIL led by Malaysians and Indonesians though, you know that absolutely nothing is actually going to get done.
Will southern Lebanon be a terrorist stronghold and thus the main battlefield in a continuous war?
If the reaction of the Arab street is anything to go by there is more support for Hezbollah's approach to things than anything the UN and the rest of the world could provide as an alternative. There is lots of young cannon fodder available to feed the jihad. The Muslim Brotherhood wants to join it too.
Peace? Naa
I don't understand how the UN can vote for a cease fire and a 15000 troop peacekeeping force, and then have all of it's members say "Oh I thought YOU were going to supply the force." Add on top of that whatever difficulties will result from 15000 disjointed troops. They won't share the same language, or commanders, or be formed as a cohesive whole with the separate parts comming together for 1 purpose. And I've still doubted that they will be willing to shoot to do their job, which renders them useless. I doubt we will see the full 15k arrive before a significant resumption of fighting.
I don't understand how the UN can vote for a cease fire and a 15000 troop peacekeeping force, and then have all of it's members say "Oh I thought YOU were going to supply the force." Add on top of that whatever difficulties will result from 15000 disjointed troops. They won't share the same language, or commanders, or be formed as a cohesive whole with the separate parts comming together for 1 purpose. And I've still doubted that they will be willing to shoot to do their job, which renders them useless. I doubt we will see the full 15k arrive before a significant resumption of fighting.
Sadly, I don't think the appearances of victory favored Israel this time as it has (along with the actuality) in the past.
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watching those UN guys try and disarm Hezbollah is going to be a sight for sore eyes...