http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH18Ak01.html Aug 18, 2006
Mission impossible in Lebanon By Kaveh L Afrasiabi The United Nations faces a perilous road ahead as it tries to muster sufficient forces to dispatch to Lebanon to turn the fragile ceasefire into a lasting peace. This is a dangerous mission rife with potential setbacks both for both Middle East peace as well as the UN itself, which lacks the right resources and even the right mandate for its would-be peacekeepers in south Lebanon. Already, contrasting interpretations regarding the scope of action by the now-enhanced UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) can be heard aplenty. Thus, whereas President George W Bush stated on Tuesday that "UNIFIL would be used to seal off the Syrian border", the head of the UN's Peacekeeping Office, Jean-Marie Guehenno, has explicitly rebuffed Bush by insisting that per the provisions of UN Resolution 1701, sealing those borders "is not something that the UN can do". As for the more contentious issue of Hezbollah's disarmament, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan bluntly told an Israeli audience, in an interview with Israeli television on Tuesday, that this was not UNIFIL's mandate, thus raising the ire of many Israeli politicians who have rushed to criticize him as being biased against Israel. Yet in fairness to Annan, Resolution 1701 is invoked under Chapter VI rather than Chapter VII, which means the more "robust" UNIFIL force - of up to 15,000 troops, although a more realistic figure in the near term is about 4,000 - will continue to act as they have been since they first set foot in Lebanon in 1978, not as "peace enforcers" but rather as traditional peacekeepers. Thus unless there is a Security Council revision of the underlying modus operandi for the new UNIFIL, requiring a subsequent resolution as implicitly called for by UNIFIL's head of operation, Major-General Alain Pellegrini, it is fairly certain that the Israeli expectation of UNIFIL somehow forcing Hezbollah to lay down its arms will not materialize. UNIFIL's role, old and new In a word, UNIFIL is today overloaded with new and additional responsibilities while, as mentioned, underloaded with the proper legal mandate. The Security Council has thus set it up for inflated and unrealistic expectations, and perhaps even another UN debacle down the road. Yet somehow - and this goes to the heart of a certain cognitive dissonance respecting the Security Council - UNIFIL has been implicitly if not explicitly asked to achieve more than what it is authorized to do. To elaborate, UNIFIL is still expected to fulfill its original mandate of Resolution 425 (1978), ie, to "confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon; restore international peace and security; and assist the government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area". After receiving punishing blows by Israel, which added to its previous verbal abuse of UNIFIL workers as "useless pensioners" by striking a UNIFIL observation post and killing four, the interim force is now poised to play a more effective role by a combination of enhanced force deployment and expanded responsibilities. Above all, it will assist the Lebanese armed forces to take control of the south and to "ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind" and to "resist attempts by forceful means" to prevent it from discharging its mandate. Per Resolution 1701, Annan has been mandated to take all the "necessary measures" to make sure that this time UNIFIL can implement the resolution's rather compounded wish list. Annan's deputy, Mark Molloch Brown, had advised the Security Council to opt for a more "sequential" approach through two or more resolutions. This was sound advice ignored partly as a result of the United States' dislike of Brown's occasional criticisms of US policy and partly due to the urgency of the crisis. This culminated in a resolution with many gray areas, such as with respect to the precise role UNIFIL is to play in south Lebanon. As Pellegrini bluntly put it, his UNIFIL is not yet enabled to "take strong measures" to enforce Resolution 1701. For the moment, UNIFIL's more modest role, ie, monitoring the ceasefire, is proceeding rather smoothly. One only hopes that this translates into better Israel-UNIFIL relations in the weeks and months to come. Israel in Lebanon: Temporary or long-term? After insisting that Israeli armed forces would depart from Lebanon "within 10 days", the Israeli leadership is now revising itself, with various political and military spokesmen postponing the due date to several weeks and even months. So don't expect a full withdrawal any time soon. The Israel Defense Forces deputy chief of general staff, Major-General Moshe Kalinsky, has been quoted in the press as stating unequivocally that the IDF would "maintain several outposts in Lebanon, even after the IDF withdraws from the area". Supposedly, this is partly in reaction to Hezbollah's announcement that its fighters would neither disarm nor move to the north of the Litani River. "Any such withdrawal means the evacuation of south Lebanon," a senior Hezbollah official, Hassan Faflollah, told the press. Averting a political crisis at a time when Hezbollah has amassed great new political capital as a result of the 33-day war, the Lebanese government has reportedly reached an agreement with Hezbollah whereby the latter will keep its arms. Should Israel linger in Lebanon, the stage will be set for more conflict, potentially getting UNIFIL caught in the middle. Bruised and humiliated by its military failure to defeat the Hezbollah, Israel has tough choices to make in the near future. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni meets UN officials in New York this week to hammer out the details of Israel's withdrawal, in parallel with the deployment of UNIFIL forces alongside Lebanese troops. The chances are that Israel may seek a "reversal of fortunes" by perpetuating its stay in Lebanon, based on intrinsic military and political calculations. A crucial issue here is how soon the international community can muster the additional forces for UNIFIL, currently at 2,000, called for by Resolution 1701. UN's challenge of mobilizing forces On Thursday, important decisions were to be made at the UN headquarters in New York by would-be troop contributors, led by France. The United States has already announced that it will not contribute, and this, together with the paltry US$50 million aid to Lebanon announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, hardly positions the US in a better seat to deal with this crisis. But of course the United States' pro-Israel biases in effect preclude any direct peacekeeping role in Lebanon for the foreseeable future, yet another sign of what is wrong with Washington's Middle East policy. By escalating the rhetoric against "Islamic fascism" and insisting that Lebanon is another front in the "war on terror", President George W Bush has actually lessened his country's capability as a peace mediator. A more prudent approach would have been to step back from such caricatures of complex realities and to send signals indicating the United States' willingness to engage in dialogue with both Iran and Syria, as well as Hezbollah, which is an integral part of the Lebanese political landscape. This aside, if the United States' direct contribution to the post-ceasefire peacekeeping is going to be minimal, it cannot at the same time expect to play a leading role in shaping policy there. Time is of the essence, however, and all sides agree that the fragile ceasefire cannot wait for weeks or months before UNIFIL's new muscular presence is established on the ground in Lebanon. Reportedly, the UN is busy speeding up the deployment process by bypassing the usual procedures. Yet what seems prudent in the short run may come to haunt the United Nations, given the fact that the deployment of a large UN force is only one aspect of a complex peace strategy that requires a parallel diplomatic track, particularly with respect to national dialogue in Lebanon. A small misstep, and UNIFIL and Hezbollah may find themselves on a collision course. In this case, one must expect a sad repetition of anti-UN acts witnessed in Iraq and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan, where the (mis)perception of the UN as a Western pawn runs rampant. Clearly, the UN can ill-afford to take any actions that could jeopardize its role and image in the Arab and Muslim worlds, which is why it is all the more important that UNIFIL include troops from Muslim countries, such as Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as other members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). Concerning the latter, its representatives have reportedly traveled to Beirut to discuss a meaningful input by the OIC in the peace process. One of the main challenges of UNIFIL's new mission in Lebanon is undoubtedly to maintain the principle of neutrality, which may be imperiled if Lebanese Shi'ites are disquieted by any over-presence of Sunni forces in UNIFIL's ranks. Even Turkey's contribution is somewhat problematic in light of Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. An ideal force structure should, then, come from the European Union and, even more so, non-Muslim developing nations that are members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Another challenge is due to the fact that typically the countries contributing to the UN peacekeeping force handle military planning and, in this case, a consensus on UNIFIL's top agenda may not be easily forthcoming. A stumbling block here is the French government's singular emphasis on the need to disarm Hezbollah. Either the French tone down their expectations, or their impending leading role in peacekeeping in Lebanon will translate into untimely fissures and tensions, thereby inviting disaster. In conclusion, Resolution 1701's plate is too full, and any expectation of simultaneous implementation of all its demands is bound to fizzle. This is because of the resolution's prioritization of the release of Israeli prisoners of war over Lebanese detainees in Israel, and reserving the right to retaliate by Israel without giving a similar right to Lebanon. Following a "modest goal" by UNIFIL, as stated by Guehenno, has its own risk. For one thing, it could lead to an Israeli refusal to depart from Lebanon. Rather, what is needed is a focused UN strategy that operates on political and military tracks simultaneously, creating a timely buffer between Israel and Hezbollah forces first and foremost. Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction. (Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] *************************************************************************** Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. 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