Posted on 08/12/2006 8:10:24 PM PDT by Sabramerican
Comment: An unmitigated disaster
There is a good reason that Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which sets the terms for a cease-fire between his jihad army and the State of Israel.
The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. This fact is evident both in the text of the resolution and in the very fact that the US decided to sponsor a cease-fire resolution before Israel had dismantled or seriously degraded Hizbullah's military capabilities.
While the resolution was not passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and so does not have the authority of law, in practice it makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hizbullah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale.
This is the case first of all because the resolution places responsibility for determining compliance in the hands of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan has distinguished himself as a man capable only of condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense while ignoring the fact that in attacking Israel, its enemies are guilty of war crimes. By empowering Annan to evaluate compliance, the resolution all but ensures that Hizbullah will not be forced to disarm and that Israel will be forced to give up the right to defend itself.
The resolution makes absolutely no mention of either Syria or Iran, without whose support Hizbullah could neither exist nor wage an illegal war against Israel. In so ignoring Hizbullah's sponsors, it ignores the regional aspect of the current war and sends the message to these two states that they may continue to equip terrorist armies in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq with the latest weaponry without paying a price for their aggression.
The resolution presents Hizbullah with a clear diplomatic victory by placing their erroneous claim of Lebanese sovereignty over the Shaba Farms, or Mount Dov - a vast area on the Golan Heights that separates the Syrian Golan from the Upper Galilee and is disputed between Israel and Syria - on the negotiating table. In doing so, the resolution rewards Hizbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its demand for territorial aggrandizement via acts of aggression, in contravention of the laws of nations.
Moreover, by allowing Lebanon to make territorial claims on Israel despite the fact that in 2000 the UN determined that Israel had withdrawn to the international border, the resolution sets a catastrophic precedent for the future. Because Lebanon is receiving international support for legally unsupportable territorial demands on Israel, in the future, the Palestinians, Syrians and indeed the Jordanians and Egyptians will feel empowered to employ aggression to gain territorial concessions from the Jewish state even if they previously signed treaties of peace with Israel. The message of the resolution's stand on Shaba Farms is that Israel can never expect for the world to recognize any of its borders as final.
By calling in the same paragraph for the "immediate cessation by Hizbullah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations," the resolution treats as equivalent Hizbullah's illegal aggression against Israel and Israel's legitimate military actions taken in defense of its sovereign territory.
Operational Paragraph 7, which "affirms that all parties are responsible for ensuring that no action is taken contrary to paragraph 1 [which calls for a cessation of hostilities] that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, including safe passage for humanitarian convoys, or the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons," all but bars Israel from taking military action to defend itself in the future. Any steps Israel takes will open it to accusations - by Annan - of breaching this paragraph.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had let it be known that Israel's conditions for a cease-fire included the institution of an arms embargo against Hizbullah. The government also insisted that the international force it wished to have deployed along the border would work to dismantle Hizbullah.
However, paragraph 8 puts both the question of an arms embargo and Hizbullah's dismantlement off to some future date when Israel and Lebanon agree to the terms of a "permanent cease-fire." In addition, it places the power to oversee an arms embargo against Hizbullah in the hands of the Lebanese government, of which Hizbullah is a member.
While the resolution bars Israel from taking measures necessary to defend its territory and citizens, by keeping UNIFIL in Lebanon it ensures that no other force will be empowered to take these necessary actions. Furthermore, paragraph 2 "calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment [of the Lebanese military and UNIFIL] begins, to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel. This means that Israel is expected to withdraw before a full deployment of Lebanese and UNIFIL forces is carried out. As a result, a vacuum will be created that will allow Hizbullah to reinforce its positions in south Lebanon.
Finally, the resolution makes no operative call for the release of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev now being held hostage by Hizbullah. By relegating their fate to a paragraph in the preamble, which then immediately turns to Hizbullah's demand for the release of Lebanese terrorists held in Israeli jails, the resolution all but eliminates any possibility of their returning home.
Aside from the resolution's egregious language, the very fact that the US has sponsored a resolution that leaves Hizbullah intact as a fighting force constitutes a devastating blow to the national security of both Israel and the US, for the following reasons:
Indeed, the seven-point declaration issued by the Lebanese government, which the UN resolution applauds, was dictated by Hizbullah, as admitted by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Nasrallah last week.
In April 2003, Hizbullah opened offices in southern Iraq and was instrumental in training the Mahdi Army, which Sadr leads. During a demonstration in Baghdad last week, Sadr's followers demanded that he consider them an extension of Hizbullah, and expressed a genuine desire to participate in Hizbullah's war against the US and Israel.
It should be assumed that Hizbullah's presumptive victory in its war against Israel will act as a catalyst for violence by Sadr and his followers against the Iraqi government and coalition forces in the weeks to come. Indeed, the Hizbullah victory will severely weaken moderate Shi'ites in the Maliki government and among the followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
The UN resolution does not strengthen the US hand in future Security Council deliberations regarding Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program because the states that object to any action against Iran - Russia and China - will continue with their refusal to sign on to any substantive action.
Indeed, Russia's behavior regarding the situation in Lebanon, including the fact that a large percentage of Hizbullah's arsenal of advanced anti-tank missiles was sold by Russia to Syria and Iran, exposes that Moscow's role in the current conflict has been similar to the position taken by the Soviet Union in earlier Middle East wars.
Furthermore, because the resolution strengthens the UN as the arbiter of peace and security in the region, the diplomatic price the US will be forced to pay if it decides to go outside the UN to contend with the Iranian threat has been vastly increased.
Many sources in Washington told this writer over the weekend that the US decision to seek a cease-fire was the result of Israel's amateurish bungling of the first three weeks of the war. The Bush administration, they argued, was being blamed for the Olmert government's incompetence and so preferred to cut its losses and sue for a cease-fire.
There is no doubt much truth to this assertion. The government's prosecution of this war has been unforgivably inept. At the same time it should be noted that the short-term political gain accrued by the US by forging the cease-fire agreement will come back to haunt the US, Israel and all forces fighting the forces of global jihad in the coming weeks and months.
By handing a victory to Hizbullah, the resolution strengthens the belief of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of destroying Israel and running the US out of the Middle East.
International legal scholar Prof. Anne Bayefsky assisted the author in analyzing the text of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
I agree. This will embolden them and we can expect fighting in our streets.
The Likud party needs to force a confidence vote.
Did they get their two soldiers back? Is hezbollah disarmed?
Israel's council votes tomorrow, right?
I give this cease fire about 7 minutes. When the UN goes back to writing another resolution, Israel can finish the job.
Koffi is out at the UN at the end of this year. A big win for the war on terror.
You might want to read any of several columns by a Dr. Joseph Hitti, for instance:
1,000 Deaths and Lebanon 20 Years Back in the Stone Age:Hezbollah has Failed!
By: Joseph Hitti
August 12/06
With UN Resolution 1701 now a fact, has Hezbollah achieved the goals it set for itself when it attacked Israel on July 12?
1. Release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.
The resolution only asks that the issue of those prisoners be worked out later.
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
2. The “liberation” of the Shebaa Farms.
Hezbollah had wanted the Shebaa Farms free of Israeli troops. The resolution again only calls only for the delineation of the border between Israel and Lebanon in the Shebaa Farms. This requires Syria to deliver on officially ceding sovereignty back to Lebanon, a demand Syria has constantly rejected in the past. Meanwhile, Shebaa remains under Israeli control.
The subservient Lebanese government had wanted the resolution to place Shebaa under U.N. control. Shebaa will remain under Israeli control.
Israel has agreed to withdraw from Lebanese territories it had never wanted to control. Any claims to the contrary by Hezbollah are moot and self-serving.
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
3. Lebanese sovereignty over the entire South of Lebanon.
After ceding sovereignty over south Lebanon to the PLO in 1969 (The Cairo Accord), then to Hezbollah in 1989 (under a semantic interpretation of the Taef Accord that Hezbollah is a “resistance” not a “militia”), Lebanon’s government now has been forced to stop leasing its own territory to foreign militias to fight other countries’ delusional wars against Israel. Had the Lebanese government been more united and accountable to its people, and less corrupt and accountable to other countries, the devastation and the killing would not have gone for so long.
The Lebanese government now is under obligation by the international community to send its own troops to take control of its own territory. The government can no longer use the ridiculous argument that it will not send its army to the south so as “not to protect Israel against Hezbollah”.
Moreover, with up to 30,000 foreign troops to be injected into UNIFIL under resolution 1701, Lebanon in fact will still be under some form of foreign control for a long time to come.
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
4. Freedom of action for the “Sacred Weapons of the Resistance”.
With a buffer zone created between the border and the Litani, Hezbollah lost its ability to import, parade and use its “sacred weapons”. Also, the Lebanese government is now under a re-stated obligation (per UN resolution 1559) to disarm Hezbollah. This time, Hassan, the M-16 will have to come out from under the robe and the turban.
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
5. Foreign/Western intervention:
As in 1860, Lebanon now has been saved, not by an Arab League resolution, not by brotherly Syria, not by Iran, and not by the Arab or the Islamic Umma. It has been saved by a Western intervention.
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
6. Lebanon’s economic future:
Lebanon is now economically much worse off than prior to July 12. Not only the setback is monumental, but Lebanon is again a beggar country in the community of nations. Even the US has increased its assistance to US$50 million, and the Lebanese government will be rebuilding Hezbollah’s offices with dollars from the great Satan, from the Sunni Hariri Junior whose Solidere Company may confiscate the entire south of the Litani in exchange for rebuilding what Israel has destroyed, and also from the decadent Sunnis of the Gulf who house secret Israeli trading offices. Where do the Lebanese get their pride from?
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
7. Wiping Israel off the map:
Hezbollah’s dream, and that of its sponsor Iran, will have to go unfulfilled. In fact, Israel has learned so much from its mistakes in this war that it will come out stronger from this experience.
Conclusion: Hezbollah’s reckless attack on July 12 failed.
And now, with nothing left to liberate, what will Hezbollah do? We have seen Hezbollah rise to glory by blowing up peacekeeping forces, hijacking planes and kidnapping innocent civilian Westerners in the Lebanon of the 1980s.
There is great anxiety that Hezbollah, now on its way to losing its false territorial and nationalist pretexts, will:
- Turn back to its roots of being the Shiite cognate of Sunni Al-Qaeda: Attacking Western interests to avenge the great Islamic fundamentalist inferiority complex towards the West, and to impose its Fascist Islamic Supremacist ideology over other cultures and religions. Thus, the expanded UNIFIL may become a target.
- Destabilize Lebanon: Even the Lebanese army may be their next target. Recall that Hezbollah succeeded for close to 24 years in preventing the Lebanese State and Army from exerting any control in the south. Hezbollah now may see internal Lebanese cohesion as its new target in order not to become irrelevant. It may infiltrate the Lebanese army to regain control in the south and force a clash between the Lebanese army and Israel. It may try to destabilize Lebanon internally through civil strife. Chances for combustion remain strong in the Lebanese south as long as Hezbollah’s ideology is beyond simple Lebanese nationalism and rests on the belief that Islam is the superior religion on Earth, that God sent its final message to the world through Islam, and that the rest of the (non-Moslem) world is an apostate and a sinner for not embracing the true religion.
I agree. All this doomsday talk is completely out of hand.
We will see over the next couple months what happens. Its too early to tell right now.
Hezbollah was only able to launch about half of their normal daily rocket barrage the past two days. Big sign that they are being strangled more and more. And if 11 Israel soliders were killed today, I'd say atleast 5 to 10 times that many Hezbollah were killed today.
The arab media and Hezbollah can claim victory all they want. The truth is something entirely different.
The Hizzies will never stop shooting, and it'll be a very long time until this International Force is on the ground.
Of Ohlmert had any stones he'd order the IDF to continue rooting out every single Hizzie they can find and shoot them in the field after a drum head Courts Martial.
L
[hezballah] may infiltrate the Lebanese army to regain
Nice layout job. and the article is right.
Make it "lives", not "leaves".
>"Attacking Western interests to avenge the great Islamic fundamentalist inferiority complex towards the West,"
They should have an inferiority complex!
They are inferior!
Their religion is inferior!
muuhamhead (Pigs be inseminating her) wuz inferior!
This will tell how Arabs view victory and defeat. It is 180 degree opposite from the way the remaining of the world understand it.
PS: In 1973 war, it was Sharon who led many armored division in the last few days of the war, after a UN resolution to cease fire was declared, and cross the Sinai desert encirciled the Egyptian armies inside the desert, cross the Suez Canal and arrive at 101 km from Cairo. I see a lot of similarity in what happened in this war during the last 24 hours when the IDF captured a lot of land in South Lebanon all the way to the Litani trapping Hizballah terrorists between them in the North at the Litani river and the Israeli borders.
It's not a defeat for America. The leadership of Israel got exactly what it wanted and nothing more. The US was quite ready to back a more decisive Israeli action.
It's Israel who became a girlieman.
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