Washington Times: "A 'stabilization force'?" Contributed by Bill Faith
As Israel steps up its campaign to cripple Hezbollah, it finds itself facing two major threats: the terrorist organization and its state sponsors in Tehran and Damascus, which are feverishly working to resupply it with weapons, and the danger that the United Nations will try to impose an immediate cease-fire that would preserve Hezbollah, which is capable of attacking Israel from Lebanon. Current negotiations at the United Nations and elsewhere are deliberating over the composition of an international "stabilization force" that would maintain security in southern Lebanon and train a Lebanese army capable of policing the southern part of the country.
In these negotiations, the United States right now is the major obstacle in the way of efforts led by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, together with France and Russia, to push through the Security Council a resolution calling for a cease-fire that would do nothing to deal with the root cause of the current violence: Hezbollah's use of Lebanese territory to attack Israel. Mr. Annan, the Russians and the French want an immediate cease-fire -- even if it enables Hezbollah to survive and re-emerge as a more dangerous threat.
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 2, 2006 at 07:43 AM in , , |