More UNIFIL Doublespeak Plus Cave-in on Iran

As the unfortunate functionary in the State Dept's International Organizations Bureau/United Nations Political office for the Middle East, I was the very first person asked to make a draft of the UNIFIL UNSC 415, which turned out to become, possibly due to Jimmy Carter's baleful streak of horrible luck and chronic incompetence, the first Security Council Resolution solely sponsored by the United States, and produced the least successful peacekeeping force in UN history. Over 250 unfortunate UN peacekeepers have died in UNIFIL's service, the record in that department, and that's not counting the foreign servicemen, including 241 US Marines and over 70 French soldiers, killed in various military attempts to suppress the Lebanese civil war.

So I understand a little of Charles Krauthammer's biting sarcasm, but cannot wholely condemn the French from a ginger approach to peacekeeping in that quasi-country.

Lebanon is an example of the other category -- multilateralism that might actually accomplish something. The United States worked assiduously with France to draft a Security Council resolution that would create a powerful international force, and thus a real buffer, in south Lebanon. However, when the Lebanese government and the Arab League objected, France became their lawyer and renegotiated the draft with the United States. The State Department acquiesced to a far weaker resolution on the quite reasonable grounds that since France was going to lead and be the major participant in the international force, we should not be dictating the terms under which the force would operate.

But we underestimated French perfidy. (Overestimating it is mathematically impossible.) Once the resolution was passed, France announced that instead of the expected 5,000 troops, it would be sending 200. The French defense minister explained that France was not going to send out soldiers under a limited mandate and weak rules of engagement -- precisely the mandate and rules of engagement that the French had just gotten us to agree to.

This breathtaking duplicity -- payback for the Louisiana Purchase? -- left the State Department red-faced. (It was offset somewhat when, last night, France agreed to send an additional 1,600 troops.) But the setback was minor compared with what we now face with Iran. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is a major irritant, but a nuclear Iran is a major strategic threat.

But today we see the feminized Italians and the androgenous French making remonstrations that perhaps Near East Peace would be better off in sensitive EU hands than in the rough-and-ready American/Israeli pilot seat.

This reflects sensitive Americans like the two gingermen on PBS Evening News, who agree with Prodi that the US should let those politically sophisticated EU types---led by Shh-iraq and Prodi---take the wheel.

Of course, these Fifth Column types realize that actually enforcing UNSC Res 1559 with regard to disarming Hezbollah terrorist cadres would be dreadfully insensitive and go counter to the UN track record of total and complete ineffectual enforcement of its SC resolutions. Kofi wouldn't approve of total enforcement, would he? Kofi's track record from Rwanda through Darfur to South Lebanon is unmarred by any actual successes. He's a tribute to affirmative action, and not much else.

Krauthammer believes Iran will benefit from this collective lack of will on the part of the Security Council, which has written off its own Resolutions, once upon a time respected around the world, as exercises in political flimflammery. Even the US and UK, holding out for some sort of enforcement mechanism for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, must deal with the hypocrisy of India and Israel's exceptionalism, even as they complain about North Korea and Iran.

So the perpetual kabuki proceeds of bowing to UN resolutions without bothering to make efforts to enforce them if determined opposition is met. Hezbollah in South Lebanon and its bankroller/enabler Iran have learned about the hollow men in charge of the EU and the twin rogue SC permanent members.

Why should they pay heed to Prodi and Shh-iraq, both hostage to large domestic Muslim immigrant populations, and knowing these two political invertebrates lack the will to do more than lip service to UN Chapter 6 protocols?