Hizbollah is as much of a threat as it ever was

[OpenMind]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... w_15082006





Hizbollah is as much of a threat as it ever was

(Filed: 15/08/2006)

In its ceasefire resolution on the Lebanese conflict, the United Nations has shirked responsibility for the key factor in bringing peace to Israel's northern border: the disbanding and disarmament of Hizbollah.

The two components of the stabilisation force will be a beefed-up version of Unifil, the discredited UN interim monitoring mission, and the Lebanese army. The first has proved itself incapable of halting Hizbollah attacks since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. The second is a conscript force still plagued by the confessional divisions of the civil war.

The destruction that Hizbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers has brought on Lebanon is a potent reminder of the danger of allowing a state to emerge within a state. But against this must be set the political kudos that the movement has won by continuing to defy the dominant power of the Levant right up to yesterday's ceasefire. Before the conflict, Hizbollah was the most formidable military force in Lebanon, as well as holding 14 of the National Assembly's 128 seats and two ministerial portfolios.



Its firepower has been circumscribed by Israeli pounding over the past month, but its political standing within Lebanon, and to a greater degree throughout the Islamic world, has grown. The movement has indicated that it has no intention of disarming. And UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted on Friday, has left that task to a government that has hitherto been unable to enforce its authority both over its eastern border, across which Hizbollah is supplied by Syria and Iran, and south of the Litani River.

The new UN force may turn out to be one of the biggest deployments of its kind in the world, but, as the Congo demonstrates, large numbers alone are not sufficient. Crucially, the latest version of Unifil will lack the authority under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to use force in the pursuit of security: the French, who are likely to assume command, have made clear that they do not want it to be involved in fighting.

Israel has given a guarded welcome to 1701. It has said it will withdraw from Lebanon once the new combined force is in place. But, more than any other country, it is aware of the ferocious hostility of Hizbollah, and its Iranian sponsors, to its very existence. The disbanding and disarmament of the movement's militia would be a significant step towards reducing that threat. Sadly, Friday's resolution, long in gestation and crucially compromised, is unlikely to bring that about.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.