Calls for International Force in Lebanon
Calls for an international peace keeping force in Lebanon are rising. What type of force this will be is a big question. UN forces have been notoriously inept. UN observers have been on the ground in south Lebanon for years while Hezbollah built up its forces. So, one could look for a different approach for this sensitive and criticle part of the world.
Faoud Ajami wrote last Friday in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) last week that Europe would be a logical place to look for an intervention. His words even recalled a text from the prophet Habbakuk:
Finding the political way out, and working out a decent security arrangement on the border, will require a serious international effort and active American diplomacy. International peacekeeping forces have had a bad name, and they often deserve it. But they may be inevitable on Lebanon's border with Israel; they may be needed to buy time for the Lebanese government to come into full sovereignty over its soil.
The Europeans claim a special affinity for Lebanon, a country of the eastern Mediterranean. This is their chance to help redeem that land, and to come to its rescue by strengthening its national army and its bureaucratic institutions. We have already seen order's enemies play their hand. We now await the forces of order and rescue, and by all appearances a long, big struggle is playing out in Lebanon.
This is from the Book of Habakkuk: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you" (2:17). The struggles of the mighty forces of the region yet again converge on a small country that has seen more than its share of history's heartbreak and history's follies.
Tom Friedman expands the list of potential investors with the likes of Russia and China:
Lebanon, alas, has not been able to produce the internal coherence to control Hezbollah and is not likely to soon. The only way this war is going to come to some stable conclusion anytime soon is if The World of Order - and I don't just mean "the West," but countries like Russia, China, India, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia too - puts together an international force that can escort the Lebanese army to the Israeli border and remain on hand to protect it against Hezbollah.
I am not talking about a U.N. peacekeeping force. I am talking about an international force, like the one that liberated Kosovo, with robust rules of engagement, heavy weapons and troops from countries like France, Russia, India and China that Iran and its proxies will not want to fight.
Friedman, like many, advocates the continued use of democracy in the region. So far this has not worked to the West's advantage. Hezbollah is the largest majority voice in the Lebanese parliament.
It appears this current crisis is going to drag on, possibly for weeks. This may not work to Israel's advantage as images of civilian casualties turn world opinion against them. Reports of bomb falling on Haifa emphasize broken glass while bombs on Beirut talk of bleeding babies.
