Jay Currie

Israel, which has postponed plans to push deeper into Lebanon to give diplomacy a chance, has insisted that it would turn over its positions in south Lebanon only to a tough multinational force that could prevent Hezbollah guerrillas returning.

But the Lebanese Government, which includes two Hezbollah Cabinet members, said that it would accept only a traditional UN peacekeeping force of the type that has been in southern Lebanon for 28 years.

The breakdown showed that the basic issue of the war — the disarming of Hezbollah — had not yet been resolved.
the times of london

The question of a ceasefire was always going to hang up on the fact that Hezbollah has no intention of disarming or accepting an international force with the mandate and power to disarm it. This fact is well known to the parties and the month long song and dance which pretended that Hezbollah would somehow accept disarmament was a farce from beginning to end.

To their credit, either the Israelis nor the Americans have been willing to participate in the farce in the that they have continued to insist that any settlement has to reflect the conditions in UN Resolution 1559, namely that Hezbollah disarm.

Now that the Lebanese government has pretty much declared the provisions of 1559 a dead letter the Israelis have no reason not to continue their campaign to destroy Hezbollah’s military capacity.

The problem here goes back to the ongoing non-enforcement of 1559 by Lebanon. By allowing Hezbollah to create an area where Lebanese soverignty simply did not exist the Lebanese government pretty much ensured that the Israelis would eventually have to deal with the problem. And, with today’s rejection of the more robust force to help disarm Hezbollah and the Lebanese demand that the entirely ineffective UN force which has been in Lebanon for 28 years to no apprciable effect, it is clear that Lebanon is not willing to confront its terrorist enclave.

So the war will go on.

Update: Or not. There is a draft resolution which seems to have gained US, French and Israeli support. This resolution would have UNFIL strengthened by 15,000 international troops and the Lebanese Army and would call on Lebanon to secure its borders aginst arms shipments not authorized by that government. 1559 would be implemented by this force.

Could work but I can’t see Hezbollah agreeing to it unless it is really on the ropes as Israel begins to gain traction in its offensive.

Update#2: Captain Ed sees the resolution as a bit of curates egg: good in parts. But his take away is interesting:

Lastly, by agreeing to this cease-fire, Olmert puts pressure on Siniora to do the same and to put Hezbollah in a box. If Siniora refuses, then Olmert orders the incursion. If Nasrallah refuses to accede to Siniora’s demand to disarm and withdraw as required by this proposal, Olmert can claim that the Lebanese government is hostage to Nasrallah and act to liberate it. Olmert will have worked the appeasers into a position where they will have endorsed further military action by the collapse of their own peace plan.

Everything hinges on Nasrallah. If he accepts the terms and allows Siniora to dislodge them from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is finished regardless of their public claims. Their raison d’etre is the defense of the southern border against Israel—and if the Lebanese Army takes that responsibility, then their militia serves no purpose in the middle of Lebanon. If Nasrallah balks, then Israel will have a green light and a wide window to finish the job, and they will have lost very little in the hours it will take for the gambit to play to its conclusion.
captain’s quarters

The critical question being whether the combination of a UN lead international force plus the Lebanese army will do anything other than watch the Hezbollah rockets fly over. If they are willing to assert Lebanese soverignty then this would have a chance of working; if, as seems more likely, they will simply take up assorted positions and act as a garrision to prevent Israel from re-invading Lebanon then Hexbollah will use the force as a screen behind which it will rebuild and begin preparations for ongoing attacks on Israel.

I would feel a lot more confident in this if the international force had a UN mandate but was not actually commanded by the UN. The UN’s track record in situations where peace keepers are actually supposed to do something other than act as hostages is not at all good.