No volunteers for Lebanon force Elaine Sciolino and Steven Erlanger | The New York Times | July 24, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/24/news/nato.php Support is growing for the creation of an international military force to stabilize the Lebanese border with Israel and to bring an end to the fighting. But there is no agreement on the size, mandate or mission of such a force and little enthusiasm around the world for sending troops. The United States has ruled out its participation, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization says that it is already stretched thin, France is calling the mission premature and Germany said it was willing to participate only if both Israel and Hezbollah called for it. "All the politicians are saying, 'Great, great' to the idea of a force, but no one is saying whose soldiers will be on the ground," said a senior European official. "Everyone will volunteer to be in charge of the logistics in Cyprus." There is also the burden of history. France and the United States have not fully recovered from their last participation in a multinational force in Lebanon, in 1982 after an Israeli invasion, when they became embroiled in the Lebanese civil war. They withdrew in defeat after Hezbollah's suicide bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, which killed 241 marines and 56 French soldiers. Israel's own public position toward an international force has been welcoming, if demanding. It has insisted that the force be capable of military action, not just peacekeeping. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel suggested that the force, with military capability and fighting experience, could be made up of soldiers from European and Arab states, while his defense minister, Amir Peretz, spoke of soldiers from NATO-member countries. But Israel senses no great willingness among leading European countries to take part in such a force, and Israeli officials emphasize that they will not accept a cessation of hostilities until clear policy goals are met. Olmert and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, played it tough with some of Europe's foreign ministers on Sunday, European and Israeli officials said. Olmert rejected an immediate cease-fire and said that the Israelis could keep up its fight with Hezbollah for a year if needed, European officials said. "The Europeans want us to stop, and we wonder how badly they want us to stop," an Israeli official said. "It's unacceptable for them to say cease-fire and then wash their hands of the consequences. If you're not part of the solution, then don't complain." For the moment, at least, Israel is laying out an ambitious view of what the force would do. Israel wants it to keep Hezbollah away from the border, to allow the Lebanese government and army to take sovereign control over all of its territory, to monitor Lebanon's borders to ensure that Hezbollah is not resupplied with weapons and to help implement a UN Security Council resolution calling for the dismantling of all nongovernmental militias, including Hezbollah. The 2004 resolution also calls for the expulsion of all foreign fighters, including any Syrian advisers and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have helped train Hezbollah since it was established by Iran in 1982. Livni laid out the goals in a meeting on Sunday with a British Foreign Office minister, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy of France, telling them that Israel's goal was to disarm Hezbollah and that either the Israeli Army or an international force would have to do it, officials familiar with the meeting said. The Europeans, including Britain, France and Germany, envision a much less robust international buffer force that would operate with the consent of the Lebanese government to support the deployment of its army in the south. Such a plan would mean that Hezbollah, which is part of the Lebanese government, would have to consent to its own disarming and the protection of Israel, a situation that European officials see as far- fetched. The U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who began a trip to the region on Monday with a quick stop in Beirut, will serve as host of an international meeting on the crisis in Rome on Wednesday, where an international force will be a prime topic of conversation. Despite the difficulties, the idea of the force continues to bring qualified endorsements. On Monday, the German defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, said that Berlin would be willing to participate if both sides requested German participation and if certain tough, and potentially insurmountable, conditions were met, including a cease-fire and the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. "We could not refuse a peace mission of this nature if these conditions were met and if requests were directed to us," Jung said on German television. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he hoped a plan, including an international force, a mutual cease-fire and the release of the captured soldiers, could be negotiated and announced in the next few days. "If someone's got a better plan I'd like to hear it," he said. "It's the only one I've got and I'm trying to make it happen." As for France, Douste-Blazy left his meetings with Israeli leaders on Sunday convinced that the idea of an international force for Lebanon was "premature," French officials said. The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said on Monday in Brussels that an international force would not be "an easy force to deploy," but added that talks were under way to deploy such a force under a UN Security Council mandate. "I think several member states of the European Union will be ready to provide all necessary assistance," he said, but did not name the countries or what they might be prepared to do. At NATO headquarters in Brussels, meanwhile, officials said that they were taken by surprise by comments of Israeli officials that they would welcome a NATO-led force to secure their border. "No request has been made to NATO," James Appathurai, the NATO spokesman, said by telephone. "The possibility, the shape, the structure of any international force - none of them have been seriously addressed. We have had no political discussions and don't intend to have any political discussions of NATO's role." For the 26-country alliance to deploy on the Israeli-Lebanese border, it would have to agree unanimously on a formal request from both Israel and Lebanon. Getting NATO agreement on rules of engagement for such a mission would be daunting, in part because Hezbollah is not a sovereign entity with fixed borders but a militia, current and former NATO officials said. The challenge of creating a viable international force was captured by Nahum Barnea, a columnist for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, who wrote about the visits by the European foreign ministers. "They only had one small condition - for the force to be made up of soldiers from another country," Barnea wrote. "The Germans recommended France; the French recommended Egypt, and so on. It is doubtful whether there is a single country in the West currently volunteering to lay down its soldiers on Hezbollah's fence." Steven Erlanger reported from Jerusalem. Alan Cowell of The New York Times contributed reporting from London. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/3EuRwD/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
