Hezbollah Refuses To Disarm
Sounds to me like if Lebanon can't uphold its side of the UN cease fire it is time for Israel to resume hostilities and begin whacking Hezbollah fighters again.
Apparently the Lebanese government is going to try and "broker a deal" with Hezbollah, but I don't see that going anywhere. Hezbollah knows full well that the Lebanese military can't disarm them, which means that this cease fire is toothless because it can't be enforced.
If this were a perfect world, Lebanon would ask Israel to back up its military in the endeavor to disarm Hezbollah...but that's not going to happen.
What Israel should do is give Hezbollah/Lebanon a weak to comply (or at least begin complying) with the cease fire. If they don't, the IDF should resume hostilities while Israel political leaders point to the cease fire as the worthless waste of time it was.
My only worry - and I think this is pretty likely - is that Hezbollah and Lebanon will come to some sort of an understanding where both sides make a big deal about disarming to fool the bureaucrats at the UN while not really disarming at all.
TODAY was supposed to be the day when the muchmaligned army of Lebanon took control of its borders and policed the UN ceasefire.
Instead, its military commanders were left humiliated and its troops stranded as Hezbollah told them not to try to disarm its fighters.
The first infantry units were preparing to head south yesterday when Hezbollah demonstrated who exercised the real control by announcing that it had no intention of surrendering a single weapon. General Michel Sleiman, the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese Army, and his lieutenants had been invited to join in Cabinet meetings to finalise plans to deploy their 15,000-strong force in a buffer zone south of the Litani river. However, they ended up being lectured by Hezbollah’s two Cabinet ministers in the coalition Government on what the army could and could not do.
In Beirut, Western diplomats said that it raised serious concerns about the army’s ability and appetite to deal with Hezbollah. The Lebanese Government was left struggling to maintain a united front after unanimously backing the UN resolution on Saturday.
Sami Haddad, the Economics Minister, said: “The Government can’t force Hezbollah to abide by the ceasefire. It’s unnatural to have an armed political party that is in Cabinet and does not abide by what the Government of Lebanon wants.”
Apparently the Lebanese government is going to try and "broker a deal" with Hezbollah, but I don't see that going anywhere. Hezbollah knows full well that the Lebanese military can't disarm them, which means that this cease fire is toothless because it can't be enforced.
If this were a perfect world, Lebanon would ask Israel to back up its military in the endeavor to disarm Hezbollah...but that's not going to happen.
What Israel should do is give Hezbollah/Lebanon a weak to comply (or at least begin complying) with the cease fire. If they don't, the IDF should resume hostilities while Israel political leaders point to the cease fire as the worthless waste of time it was.
My only worry - and I think this is pretty likely - is that Hezbollah and Lebanon will come to some sort of an understanding where both sides make a big deal about disarming to fool the bureaucrats at the UN while not really disarming at all.
