Lebanon Baloney Sandwich, Hold The Fries

Lebanon has decided it doesn't want French forces in Southern Lebanon causing something of a snag in UN negotiations around a cease fire Resolution in the Middle East. France is also having second thoughts.

Captains Quarters thinks the French and the Lebanese have devolved into incoherence.

France and Lebanon have both achieved incoherence.

I'm not as convinced it's incoherent, so much as it is the French and certain Middle Eastern countries acting just as they have been for some time. Look at it another way. Hezbollah, Iran and the French have gotten what they wanted, at least for now - a cease fire. They may also feel that they've moved the goal posts in negotiations.

The US and Israel are talking about talking, as opposed to fighting. Watch for France and other players to attempt to go back to their original position, placing an UNFIL force in the region, supplemented by the Lebanese army. Their reasoning - well, we've all agreed a force is needed, we're just arguing over which one. So, why don't the US and Israel simply back up a little more and allow what suits Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the French.

Given France's obvious ability to betray the US at every turn, there's reason to speculate that their starting to come our way in discussions was nothing but a bit of too smart by half International diplomacy. The real problem is, will the US and Israel stand up to International pressure and allow things to slip back into active war?

In short, between career diplomats at State and France, I think it's likely that the Bush administration was played. If so, then once again, Bush's trusting and somewhat naive nature has dealt his administration another blow.

We and Israel will be cast as the evil warmongers content to allow Lebanon to slip back into war, only because we couldn't agree on the particular flag flying over some number of troops everyone believes are necessary to achieve peace.

This is just another example of how diplomacy has co-opted war fighting. War may be an extension of politics, but we're allowing politics to be a primary component of the formulation of military strategy. And when you do that, you most likely are going to lose, or at the very least, not win the war.

Comments

[Chaya]

As Ben Gurion said: "Oom shmum!' ('Oom" is the Hebrew pronunciation for U.N.) In the meantime, more rockets are falling on Haifa and other towns in the North.

And there is a growing conflict between the military echelon and the Prime Minister Go to www.israelinsider.com to read about it.

[rwilymz]

I think you're misreading France's position on Lebanon to be purely spiteful of the US rather than self-serving to the French for other reasons.

Anyone who's been paying attention to the Frog-American relationship since mid-WWII knows that a large part of French positioning is done to be contrarian to US purposes. But not all of it.

France has a few places in the world that it likes to swagger about. The first, and most obvious, is western Africa, which France believes is it's little foreign-intrigue playground. At the same time France was in their sanctimonious snit about the US and Britain playing king-maker in Iraq, France was playing king-maker in Ivory Coast. France has proprietary aambitions in west Africa.

Additionally, France has long had a paternal, even patronizing, view of Lebanon. Lebanon is a gorgeous country -- when not rent asunder by war -- and in the decades after WWII [which France didn't have to pay for since they bowed out so early] and before the revival of post-Ottoman pan-islamism, Lebanon was, for France, what Cancun is now to the US: a foreign playground for the wealthy and the quasi-wealthy. Lebanon is like a pet to France.

It was just last winter that Chirac, upon Syrai's withdrawal, gave the world-in-general a warning: if there is any indication of further foreign involvement in Lebanese politics, we'll know who to blame. They were, of course, talking to Iran using vague and generalized, if nuclear-tipped, language.

I think it'd be a mistake to automatically mistrust French intentions as regards Lebanon.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

When you remove the filters, Lebanon is strongly objecting to a UN series seven resolution. That would give UN troops the right to fire if attacked or in interests of maintaining the ceasefire.

Clearly, Hizbollah is still holding Lebanon hostage

[tommo]

"...diplomacy has co-opted war fighting." Well heaven forbid!!

Blessed are the war-mongers? You are a dangerous nutjob who should be locked up in a nice padded room, away from those dangerous computer keyboards.

[old trooper]

Olmert says no. The Offensive is now a Go. Both Hezbollah and Lebanon will not agree to a UN Chapter VII Force.

For those of you that do not regognize Chapter VII, it states that the Force will be Armed and will shoot back if fired upon. It is in the UN Charter. UNIFIL was just a witness to the crime. A Chapter VII Force will not be bystanders, as was UNIFIL. Netanyahu referred to UNIFIL as "pensioners and tourists". I agree with him.

Clinton sent troops to Bosnia and Kosovo with UN Chapter VII endorsement, as a footnote for those who want some history on Ch. VII, although it was a NATO Command eventually

[rwilymz]

"Blessed are the war-mongers?

At times, yes.

Gratuitous peace is as often complicit in the promulgation of war as are those who deliberately seek armed conflict. If Britain and France had responded to the re-occupation of the Rhineland there would have bee a minor border war and the pacifists and Nazi sympathizers of the day would have wet their panties all over the place, but WWII would never have happened.

An extremely good argument can be made that a rather large portion of the garden party that the entire Middle East has become can be laid at the feet of peace-above-all-else Pal-Arab accomodators.

Just remember: it takes two to make peace; it only takes one to make war. And if the one who wants war is going up against someone else who is *only* working for peace ... well, guess who wins the war?

[Gary Maxwell]

Some of you throw ing around the charge of war monger need to learn a couple of terms. They are Hudna and Taqqiya. When you are fully conversant with the terms and their historical precedents, then come back and perhaps we can have an intelligent discussion. I wont bother to point out who started the war, or how the loser at this point is attempting to use diplomacy to gain what they have lost to date on the battlefield as it will be lost on you until you understand the thoughts of the enemy on the other side.

Remember its the Party of God, and they believe in a literal interpretation of the Quran. If you think of them as similar to Christian fundamentalists, you can probably work yourself up to the proper amount of righteous indignation.

[rwilymz]

"Remember its the Party of God, and they believe in a literal interpretation of the Quran. If you think of them as similar to Christian fundamentalists, you can probably work yourself up to the proper amount of righteous indignation"

Christian fundamentalists will pray for hurricanes to hit "godless" NYC, and will scream at pregnant women at abortion clinics.

Muslim fundamentalists are Christian fundamentalists with shorter tempers, automatic weapons and high explosives -- and the willingness to use them to achieve their aims.

...and to lie every step of the way.

The believe as the koran tells them, the ultimate destiny of "the muslim nation" is to rule the world under islamic law -- literally. It is therefore obligatory to act in concert with that prophecy. And islam teaches that lies are obligatory when the objective is obligatory.

The basis of this "lying is fundamental" theology was some guy named Elgazel, from roughly a thousand years ago. He denounced the [then] 1,500 year-old logical argument development of Socrates and Plato [et al] because they were not muslim, and therefore wrong. In the muslim mind, therefore, up = down if it serves the muslim purpose; peace = war if it serves the muslim purpose; 2+2 = 5 if it serves the muslim purpose.

Which is why islam is the "religion of peace". Because peaces means war when they want it to.