| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| The Mixed Bag Ceasefire |
| 2006-08-12 |
| by "Captain Ed" Morrissey This is a good objective analysis, and I think he's on the right track. Emphasis added. It appears that Ehud Olmert has accepted in principle the cease-fire proposal offered by the US and France, who apparently recovered somewhat from the swoon it experienced over Arab criticism of the original proposal. . . . Some have hailed this as a breakthrough, while others see it as an unmitigated disaster. The truth is that the proposal gives both sides something while attempting to find what everyone understands will be the eventual outcome of any protracted war, given the reluctance of Israel to attempt another twenty-year occupation of Lebanon. And it holds an ace in the hole for Israel, which many seem to have missed. Let's look at the resolution itself . . . . The points adopted in this proposal say nothing of an immediate withdrawal by Israel, nor does it link the war to the issue of Lebanese criminals in Israeli prisons, the motivation for starting the war in the first place. Nasrallah got skunked on the one action he hoped to accomplish, and the resulting prisoner swaps will likey involve only those captured during the war. It also explicitly puts the blame for the war on Hezbollah -- and excludes it from any other legitimation in the document. In fact, the resolution requires Hezbollah to cease all hostilities, while it only requires Israel to cease offensive operations. Until Hezbollah stops launching rockets at Israel, the IDF has a free hand to take responsive action to stop them and take out their launch capabilities. In effect, it says that Israel can continue the fight until Hezbollah stops attacking them. The resolution also demands the end of military support for Hezbollah and the exercise of sovereignty over southern Lebanon by the Lebanese government. That demand is not new, and had the Lebanese complied with it last year, this war would never have taken place. The Siniora government will have to control the territory south of the Litani, and according to this agreement, everywhere else in Lebanon, too. There's plenty to dislike here, too. The agreement makes several flattering references to the seven-point plan put forth by Fuad Siniora, a list of grievances and goals he could easily have copied from a Hezbollah web site. Most egregiously, it continues the UNIFIL force as the conductor for the Lebanese Army, despite its decades-long record of incompetence and outright collaboration with Hezbollah. The UN will deploy a much larger UNIFIL force than in the past, up to 15,000 troops, matching the Lebanese Army contingent. It will also have a mandate for force in order to ensure compliance, although given the lack of will shown in UNIFIL and other UN forces in the past, one has to chuckle inwardly at the suggestion. Some hoped for a crushing defeat of Hezbollah, especially its command structure, starting with Hassan Nasrallah. Unfortunately, the Israelis dithered too much in its military strategy. In retrospect, the air campaign was a mistake, and the IDF should have been allowed to adopt a massive incursion strategy instead. The threat of such an incursion gained Israel plenty of concessions in this document, but Olmert could have won most of his objectives had he not paid so much attention to the diplomatic tut-tutting adopted towards Israel but not the terrorists it faced. In any event, an outright victory was very unlikely. Hezbollah remains very popular among the Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon, a significant portion of the nation. At worst they would have melted into the towns and villages and simply returned later. The best Israel could achieve was to have the Lebanese government take responsibility for the south and hold it militarily to keep terrorists from conducting unfettered attacks on the border. If this agreement gets properly implemented -- a very large If -- then Israel will have achieved those goals without having to conduct another generational occupation of Lebanon. Lastly, by agreeing to this cease-fire, Olmert puts pressure on Siniora to do the same and to put Hezbollah in a box. If Siniora refuses, then Olmert orders the incursion. If Nasrallah refuses to accede to Siniora's demand to disarm and withdraw as required by this proposal, Olmert can claim that the Lebanese government is hostage to Nasrallah and act to liberate it. Olmert will have worked the appeasers into a position where they will have endorsed further military action by the collapse of their own peace plan. Everything hinges on Nasrallah. If he accepts the terms and allows Siniora to dislodge them from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is finished regardless of their public claims. Their raison d'etre is the defense of the southern border against Israel -- and if the Lebanese Army takes that responsibility, then their militia serves no purpose in the middle of Lebanon. If Nasrallah balks, then Israel will have a green light and a wide window to finish the job, and they will have lost very little in the hours it will take for the gambit to play to its conclusion. . . . One other point is worth mentioning. The Power Line post suggests that the Bush administration didn't want to take the heat for more fighting in Lebanon, which I think is an unfair shot at the White House. Bush and his team made sure that they would not allow the UN to win the war for Hezbollah, and this document at least shows that effort, regardless of its implementation. It's really not our job to hold umbrellas for Israel, and they certainly didn't show too much enthusiasm for fighting the kind of war the post suggests in any case. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #4 Check out Bush's statement on the resolution. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-08-12 10:32 |
| #3 Oh goodie, it's a worthless piece of paper. Any Hezbollah Rocket passing into Israel is a valid excuse to resume kicking their ass. Wonderful, promote and reward the Israelli who got that language into the "Cease Fire" paper. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2006-08-12 10:17 |
| #2 Podhoretz in the Corner: A Quick Parsing of the Resolution [John Podhoretz] It's not a disaster, for this reason: The language of Paragraph 10, point 1, reads "Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations." This is not parallel language. Hezbollah must cease all attacks. Israel must only cease "offensive military operations." Since Israel itself defines its own action in South Lebanon as by definition defensive, not offensive, there's a lot of give here. Besides which, will Hezbollah really cease "all attacks"? Posted at 5:31 PM |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-08-12 09:54 |
| #1 My quibble is that Olmert would have to have a sudden personality change to act as Captain Ed describes. Up to now he's fit the jellyfish pic to a tee. |
| Posted by: PBMcL 2006-08-12 01:14 |